If you’re ever in the Middle East and looking for something to do, go to Petra. Sure, floating in the Dead Sea is fun, and riding a camel through the desert like Laurence of Arabia is good for a lark, but Petra is one of those places that inspire true awe.
The entrance to the ancient city is a deep ravine a few meters wide with towering stone cliffs and ancient aqueducts on either side. This eventually opens out to reveal the towering façade of the ancient city’s most famous relic, Al Khazneh. It’s around three stories high ornately decorated, and when you consider it was carved by hand, out of the side of a mountain, it’s pretty damn cool.
But remember Petra was an entire city, and as such there is heaps to explore. Roman coins still litter the ground in places and if you climb up the mountain to visit El Deir (The Monastery) the view is simply staggering. And if all that’s not enough, it featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!
