King Abdullah Mosque, Fine arts, Golden corner and Sweets

Last day in Amman started with rain. It seemed that we will have a slow boring day, so we headed to the Northern part to Jebel Amman. It wouldn´t stop raining, so we wanted to go Starbucks, have a cup of coffee and wait for some sun rays to appear. Actually it was very difficult to find a taxi driver, who knew where Starbucks was. And even when we found one, the drive to Starbucks turned into a city tour. After some time we finally arrived.

As we assumed, the rain stopped and sun began to shine again. Recharged we headed around the city. The first thing we noticed was beautiful King Abdullah Mosque - a memorial of the late King Hussein to his grandfather.

Opposite to King Abdullah´s Mosque is Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. The gallery is quite small, but it contains a lot of art from Middle Eastern artists. We enjoyed paintings, sculptures and pottery of the Muslim world.

After the visit we continued our walk back to downtown. We noticed that not all people have to struggle to survive. Some are doing quite well, actually...

By the time we arrived to downtown, we were very tired. Juice stands were inviting us with their refreshing juices. Fresh made juice from sugar cane was an excellent choice.

Amman´s downtown has its own gold souq, where you can see jewelry shops one next to another.

We had lunch in Cairo restaurant, where we ate local food - grilled chicken with grilled vegetables and bread and shawarma sandwiches.

It is very common to see bakeries inviting you to try some traditional desserts. They offer everything, from several kinds of baklava to cakes and ice cream. Even though everything looks delicious, it was too sweet for our taste.

Greetings,

Jerneja & Boris

Welcome to Jordan!

Little did we know, that Mike's hospitality didn't end with the dinner. He also prepared us breakfast.

After breakfast it was time to explore Jordan's capital. As we left the hostel, we started to feel the city. Warm sun on our faces and people cheering at us: "Welcome to Jordan!" Jordanian people are well known for their hospitality and friendliness.

First we headed to see Amman's market. This is a place where you can find more than anything. From all parts of goat...

... to live tutrles, chickens (all sizes and colors)...

... to fish...

... to all sorts of hats...

... and finally ladies dresses...

After we came out of the market we spotted some nice ruins on top of the hill. So we headed towards them and on the way to the top we found out that this is the famous old Citadel. We got in touch with rich jordanian history. The Citadel is known as one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited place. It encapsulates more then 7000 years of history of mankind from the Temple of Hercules to "morden" mosque.

Oh did we forget to mention how awesome view over the Amman city is up there?

Suddenly we spotted a theatre. It looked more like a Roman theater...

Our next attraction was chosen. The Romans did take advantage of Amman's diverse landscape and used one of many Amman's hill to build the theater. The theater is approximately 1800 years old and well preserved. It is oriented north to keep the sun of the spectators and there could seat about 6000 people.

After all the history knowledge was consumed our stomachs chose next destination. The one and only... The famous... The Hashem restaurant! When we entered the restaurant we heard: "Welcome to Jordan!"

This was the place where all our senses got benefit. The restaurant is owned by turkish family and is known across entire Amman with sentance: "It is all about falafel!". Actually when we tried falafel here, we found out that it is not all about falafel but more all about the chickpeas. The falafel here was outstanding. It was fresh, smelled delicious and it was just melting in out mouths. But this restaurant offered more then just the falafel. The dish we got consisted of hummus, beans, fresh tomatoes and mint leaves. And all together made this restaurant awesome.

One more amazing fact about the restaurant: it was all-you-can-eat for really low fixed price!

And at this point we took two decisions. Firstly, we will definitely come back to the Hashem restaurant. Secondly, we were too tired to continue our journey and will do some one-day-trip in the next days.

Welcome to Jordan!

Boris & Jerneja

Arrival in Amman

Our main holiday destination for this year was the hidden gem of Middle East - Jordan.
Why we decided on Jordan? There are two reasons why:

1. Petra (one of the seven wonders of the world)
2. Diving (in Aqaba)

The best time to visit Jordan is either in spring or in autumn. And we chose spring. Actually it was already time to go. So we packed our backpacks and flew to Jordan. We started our trip in the capital of Jordan, Amman.



In order to enter the country we needed to buy a visa.

After all the paperwork we finally arrived in the country.

We arranged transport from the airport to the reserved hostel (Bdeiwi Hostel) in advance. There was a guy called Mike waiting for us at the airport. It took us almost one hour drive by car to get from the airport to the hostel. Mike, who was a receptionist and a driver, explained us his life story and some basic need-to-know cultural rules, we should obey in Jordan. We came to the hostel safely and he even prepared us a nice warm dinner.

The room we got wasn't really clean at all. But it was too late to search for another hotel. We just wanted to sleep and deal with the room next day.

The long trip to Jordan got us really tired. We called it the day and went to sleep. Excited about the new flavors, we decided to start the next day with the most famous falafel in town.

Till next day greetings from Amman,

Boris & Jerneja