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Operating by means of Syria and Jordan to the Purple Sea, the King’s Freeway is one of the world’s oldest and most “romantic” thoroughfares – “as legendary and evocative because the Silk Street”, says Stanley Stewart within the FT. Used since prehistoric instances, it has carried monarchs, saints and heroes, from the Queen of Sheba and John the Baptist to Richard the Lionheart and Lawrence of Arabia.
And its geography is as astounding as its historical past. The highway runs on a plateau to the east of the Nice Rift Valley, the place the earth splits dramatically to create a “gothic” panorama of escarpments and precipices, “convoluted” canyons and “dizzy” heights the place eagles soar.
To soak up among the most exceptional sights in relaxed style, drive south from Amman in northern Jordan to Aqaba on the Purple Sea, giving your self every week and staying at small, regionally run motels alongside the way in which. From the ruined palace of Herod Antipas close to the village of Mukawir (historical Machaerus), you possibly can see the domes of Jerusalem “glinting in distant solar”. Desert winds moan between the damaged pillars of the banqueting corridor the place Salome is alleged to have danced for the king, demanding the pinnacle of John the Baptist as her reward.
And scarcely much less atmospheric are the vaulted halls of Karak, 50 miles to the south – some of the spectacular of Crusader castles, a “chiaroscuro labyrinth” sitting astride a sheer-sided spur of rock. Go away your automotive and stroll the final ten miles to Petra in the event you can, mountaineering throughout a “colossal empty panorama” and alongside the pure valley by means of the rock that results in this historical metropolis, with its spectacular hidden temples and tombs carved into towering sandstone cliffs. And cease once more to wander among the many rock formations of the desert valley of Wadi Rum – “huge, echoing and god-like”, within the phrases of T.E. Lawrence.
Authentic Journey has an eight-night journey from £2,850 per individual together with flights, automotive and driver
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