Hidden amongst the ancient canyons of Jordan's south is Petra, the most mystic and glorious of  Jordan’s national treasures. An eternal tribute to a lost civilization, Petra is the highlight of a trip to Jordan. Carved entirely into the naturally pink rocks, the remains of the once lost Nabataean city of Petra include temples, Roman theaters, monasteries, houses, and roads. From the  entrance, a track leads you down to the Siq, the narrow gorge that takes you into Petra. Once inside, the path narrow as the cliffs seems to close on you, and just as you least expect it, the passage widens and you catch a glimpse of the astonishing monument that dominates Petra El Khazneh (The Treasury). A one day drive from Amman takes you right into the heart of ancient history, a journey through time you’ll never forget.

El Siq

To reach the city the visitor travels on foot, or by horse-drawn carriage through the awesome ”Siq”, an immense crack in the Nubian sandstone.
It is a winding, one-Kilometer-long fissure between overhanging cliffs that seem to meet more than 300 feet over head. Near the end of the passage, the Siq with great style, makes one last turn and out of the gloom in the towering brightness appears Petra’s most impressive monument, El Khazneh (The Treasury).

This, one of the most elegant remains of antiquity, carved out of the solid rock from the side of the mountain, is nearly 140 feet high and 90 feet wide.

Beyond El Khazneh the visitor is surrounded on both sides by hundreds of Petra’s carved and built structures, soaring temples, elaborate royal tombs, a carved Roman theater seating ( 3,000), large and small houses, burial chambers, banquet halls, water channels and reservoirs, baths, monumental staircases, cultic installations, markets, arched gates, public buildings, and paved streets.

Petra is not only about the Nabataeans, within a fifteen-minute drive of Petra the visitor can walk through 8,000-year-old excavated Stone Age villages at Beidha and Basta, wander among the ruins of settlements of the Biblical Edomites, or explore the sprawling remains of the Roman legionary fortress at Udruh.

The Monastery (El Deir)