Day two in Jordan entailed visiting the ancient Roman sites Um Qais and Jerash.  I didn’t realize there were Roman ruins in Jordan before this trip, but there are.  Our tour guide was Jordanian and actually grew up in Um Qais.  Apparently some of the sites, including this one, were inhabited by locals until the 1980s when the government relocated the people living in them and established the ruins as archeological sites.

The above photo shows storefronts lining a road.  Our guide said that after he and his family were relocated to a nearby house, he worked with the archeologists excavating the ruins.  He said he spent a lot of time crawling through a tunnel looking for artifacts under what was previously his uncle’s house.

Some of the intricate carving remained beautifully intact.

The ruins in the lower left in the above photo are part of a Roman bath.

The lake in the background is Lake Tiberius, or the Sea of Galilee.  Israel is in the distance on the left, and Syria (Golan Heights) is on the right.

The hill on the horizon is Mt. Tabor, the Biblical site of the Transfiguration of Jesus.  It was pretty incredible to be able to see so much from this site.  It’s difficult to see in this photo, but the line of trees further off in the horizon on the right is Nazareth.

We then headed to Jerash, which we entered through a beautiful triumphal arch.

The detail was really incredible.

The city was quite large, with an oval colonnade and paved streets. The roads are dotted with covered manholes.  It was often possible to see through gaps around these manholes… a startling reminder that the roads were laid over their sewer system.  It was surprising to learn that it has survived several earthquakes and still remains so well intact.

There was even a column that swayed back and forth.  The movement was imperceptible to the eye, but if you put anything (a credit card, a key, a finger!) in one of the cracks in the column, you could see the object move up and down as the column swayed or feel the pressure changing on your finger.  It was pretty weird!

Above is the oval colonnade… along with some bread sitting on a rock.

There is also a Byzantine church at Jerash that has an elaborate mosaic floor that is still largely intact.

There was also a theater.

These guys were playing bagpipes… not exactly what I was expecting, but why not!

There’s Brandon and the last known sighting of our trusty guidebook.

And then the sun went down and we went back to our hotel to rest up before another busy day of sightseeing.