Kerak, Jordan

The magnificent Crusader fortress of Kerak - Crak des Moabites, or Le Pierre du Desert to Crusaders - soars above its valleys and hills like a great ship riding waves of rock. But Kerak's origins go back long before the Crusaders; the earliest remains are Iron Age, shortly after the Exodus, when this was a part of Moab. It was known as Kir-haraseth, Kir-heres, or Kir, and its doom was prophesied by Isaiah (16:7), who mentions its 'raisin-cakes', presumably a local specialty. Then it falls out of history until the Byzantine period, when it was important enough to have an archbishop.

It was the Crusaders who made Kerak (biblical Charach Mouba) famous. The fortress, located 124 km south of Amman, was built in 1142 by Payen le Bouteiller, lord of Montreal and of the province of Oultre Jourdain, on the remains of earlier citadels, which date back to Nabataean times. He made Kerak the new capital of the province, for it was superbly situated on the King's Highway, where it could control all traffic from north and south and grow rich by the imposition of road-tolls.

Ajloun, Jordan

73 km north of Amman, and a short journey northwest from Jerash, through a beautiful pine-forest and olive groves, brings you to the town of Ajloun, where Hadrian stayed over the winter of 129-30 AD, and built himself an arch well outside the town, leaving unbonded its sides for future city walls to come out to meet it.

Bethany, Jordan Less than 2 kms east of the Jordan River is an important place associated with the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist (pbut), the settlement of Bethany, where John lived and baptized. John 1:28 refer to it as "Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing". In John 10:40 it is mentioned as the place to which Jesus (pbuh) fled for safety after being threatened with stoning in Jerusalem: "Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days".

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The tourist map in Jordan

Pella, Jordan

Magnificently set in a fold of the hills that rise from the Jordan Valley 78 km north of Amman, Pella; known in Arabic as Tabaqat Fahl; is one of the most ancient sites in Jordan and a favorite of archaeologists being exceptionally rich in antiquities. It is perfectly situated, for there is a spring here which issues into a small river and never runs dry. The tell itself seems to have been continuously occupied since Neolithic times for some flints from this period have been found there; and some recent finds 2 km north of the tell even date to Paleolithic times, around 100,000 years ago.

Umm Al-Jimal, Jordan

The extensive black basalt city of Umm Al-Jimal, anciently called "Black Gem of the Desert", lies like a dark encrustation on the flat desert of northern Jordan. So many of the buildings still stand to two, or even three, storeys that it seems as if its abandonment must have been within living memory - in fact it has been deserted for about 1200 years.

Amman, Jordan Amman, the modern and ancient capital of Jordan, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the World. The city's modern buildings blend with the remnants of ancient civilizations. The profusion of gleaming white houses, kebab stalls with roasting meat, and tiny cafes where rich Arabian coffee is sipped in the afternoon sunshine, conjure a mood straight from a thousand and one nights.