It felt wrong to end with photos of the modern town at sunset, so I saved a few of my favorite shots from the Great Temple exploration to close this series with. Here we’re looking through the Temenos Gate, along the Colonnaded Street to the Royal Tombs beyond. The other three below were taken from inside the Temple, giving you panoramas or yet another look at the Royal Tombs looming in the distance.
Do check the map to get a sense again of all the wanderings I’ve shown you – and come back to these posts any time you need a reminder of sunnier and drier days :-).
These “Djinn Block” are the first obvious items of ancient archeological origin which you encounter after walking past the entrance gate and beginning the slow descent towards the path through the Siq and on to the vast array of sites in the heart of Petra. Like everything else on the main path and the Siq, I passed them four times (in and out the first and second days), and only took the time to photograph them as I neared the entrance at the end of the magnificent day that I’ve been documenting for you. 🙂
This tomb sits relatively close to the entrance, before you enter the narrow path through the Siq itself. I took a photo of it the evening before, when I walked in for the very first time and it was bathed in full sunshine: if you’d like to compare, you can find that photo in Petra.3, where I also posted the map and explained a bit about how I planned to go about this series. Hope you feel I’ve fulfilled my promises :-).
We’ve walked back past the Royal Tombs, the Theater, The Wall of Facades…we’ve turned into the Siq where – this evening, after rushing through it with barely a pause for a photo 12 hours ago on my way to the heights to look down at the Treeasury – this solo tomb stands alone in an odd corner.
…but first (referring to the last post),I’ll show you the view looking back to where we’ve been, above and below. We’ve begun the lovely last sunset walk up from the basin to the entrance, with indeed photos of the Great Temple (from which the image below was shot). Linger with me. 🙂
I’ve lingered lovingly on the views seen from the trail coming back down from the monastery — because they remind me of dry, sunny desert air on a beuatiful day. Because I think they’re beautiful in their own right. Because it was truly one of the most beautiful days of my rich existence thus far. Because I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be showing you next, although one thing I definitely plan is a break to let my creative tank refill. So today you see: above, the area I call the Basin b/c it’s got a restaurant of that name (the low roof on the left), and it’s pretty much the lowest point inside the Petra compound. And below, first the view from the basin back up towards the Great Temple (more of that very soon) with the Royal Tomb cliffs in the distance; and the third photo shows you the view looking back to the start of the Monastery trail and the hills from which came all the solo photos this past week, as seen from within the Great Temple ruihs.
Enlarge on a full screen and you’ll notice again the cliff face of the Royal Tombs in the top left quadrant of this photo. We’re walking back down toward the basin and an exploration of the Great Temple, buying various items along the way in the face of the excellent persuasive sale pitches of these vendors 🙂
Yes, even in this beautiful place at a time of relatively low transmission both in Jordan and in the Netherlands, one couldn’t quite escape the reminders. I believe I’ll retire this series now. Enough already. Get vaccinated and boosted and practice evidence-based public preventive behavior, please.
It felt wrong to end with photos of the modern town at sunset, so I saved a few of my favorite shots from the Great Temple exploration to close this series with. Here we’re looking through the Temenos Gate, along the Colonnaded Street to the Royal Tombs beyond. The other three below were taken from inside the Temple, giving you panoramas or yet another look at the Royal Tombs looming in the distance.
(so much world, so little time....) 