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Mysterious Petra is an amazing man-made city, carved into the rock, whose beauty is a combination of the work of skilled craftsmen and the wealth of colors of nature itself. The ancient city is more than 2000 years old, but it never ceases to fascinate travelers from all over the planet.
In addition to the grandeur and scope of its architectural structures, Petra astounds with the perfection of engineering thought of the people who laid the canals that supply water to the city lost in the desert mountains.
In 1978, Petra was declared a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO, and in 2007 it was named one of the Seven New Wonders of the World.
Petra was located at the crossroads of two major trade routes: one connected the Red Sea with Damascus, the other – the Persian Gulf with Gaza on the Mediterranean coast. Caravans, laden with precious spices, leaving the Persian Gulf, had to bravely endure the harsh conditions of the Arabian desert for weeks until they reached the coolness of the narrow Siq canyon leading to the long-awaited Petra, where travelers found food, shelter and cool life-giving water.
For hundreds of years, trade brought great wealth to Petrа. But when the Romans opened sea routes to the East, the overland spice trade came to naught and Petra gradually became empty, lost in the sands.
Many buildings of Petra were erected in different epochs and under different owners of the city, including the Edomites (18-2 centuries BC), Nabateans (2nd century BC – 106 AD), Romans (AD 106-395), Byzantines and Arabs. In the XII century A.D. e. it was owned by the crusaders.
08:00
9 hours
We will pick you up from any place in Aqaba & drive to Petra with a short stop on the way.
It takes around 2 hours to reach Petra Visitors Center where we start our walking journey to the World’s 8th wonder.
After walking 800 m we reach Siq (a rock canal that measures 1200 meters in length, 3 to 12 meters in width and reaches up to 80 meters in height).
The Siq opens up onto Petra’s most magnificent façade – the Treasury, or Al Khazna.
After the Treasury, the path broadens into a wide Street of Facades flanked on either side by the tombs that characterize the entire site.
The Street of Facades leads us to the 5,000-seat theatre, carved right in the middle of a major cemetery area:
Across from the theatre at the western side of Jebel Khubtha we reach our final point – Royal Tombs.
After a tour of the Royal Tombs we unfold and return back to the Visitors Center from where the bus will take us to a local restaurant for buffet lunch before moving back to Aqaba.
