Monthly Archives: April 2015

Israel

In Which We Visit Jerusalem

Leave a comment

As one of the oldest cities in the world and a city with strong ties to three of the world’s major religions, Jerusalem has an incredible number of important sites. We spent nearly a week in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, and we felt like we barely scratched the surface.

Old City

Many of the most important sites are located in the Old City, a section of Jerusalem that is surrounded by walls that were erected in 1538. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is divided into four sections: the Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter.

Old City, Jerusalem, Israel - www.nonbillablehours.com
Inside the walls of the Old City.

On our first full day in Jerusalem, we took a free walking tour of the Old City to get a survey of the area. Although we gleaned some broad background on Jerusalem’s history, I would not necessarily recommend this plan to fellow travelers – mostly we just ended up killing a few hours walking around to a bunch of sites without the opportunity to actually go inside or truly appreciate them.1 If I could do it over again, I would skip the tour and just visit the different quarters on our own – which is exactly what we did over the next several days. Continue reading In Which We Visit Jerusalem →

Israel, Jordan

Back at the Israeli Border: Overland from Amman to Jerusalem via the King Hussein Bridge

Leave a comment

The day after our trip to Jerash, we said goodbye to Jordan and set out for Israel. Readers of this blog may recall that we crossed the border into Israel once already on this trip … and that our first excursion into Israel took less than an hour. This time, we were doing more than just transiting through – we were on our way to Jerusalem.

We planned to travel overland from Amman to Jerusalem via the King Hussein Bridge (or, as it is known on the Israeli side of the border, the Allenby Bridge), which spans the Jordan River.

Crossing from Jordan to Israel | www.nonbillablehours.com
As an international border crossing, the bridge is not really one of those things that you are supposed to photograph. Just to give you a vague idea of what the area used to look like, here is an old picture of the bridge from the ’90s that I found on Flickr. | Image credit: Velovotee

Everything that we had read about this border crossing indicated it was busy and intense, and so we did our best to prepare ourselves for what we anticipated being a long, potentially frustrating day. We made sure our papers were in order, that anything that might look suspicious to immigration authorities (the guidebooks which attracted the attention of the border guards on our first trip across Israel, the jar of peanut butter that we carry to keep us fed on long bus rides) was near the top of our bags and thus easily accessible for inspection, and that we were armed with plenty of snacks, water, and patience. Continue reading Back at the Israeli Border: Overland from Amman to Jerusalem via the King Hussein Bridge →

Jordan

Jerash: The Most Spectacular Roman Ruins You’ve Never Heard Of

1 Comment

From Amman, we took a day-trip to Jerash, home to a really spectacular set of Roman ruins.

Jerash: The Most Spectacular Roman Ruins You've Never Heard Of - www.nonbillablehours.com #travel #jordan
Looking down on the Oval Forum from the Temple of Zeus. I used the word “spectacular,” right?

Never heard of Jerash? Don’t worry, neither had we! (And I majored in Classical Civilizations in undergrad; I live for this kind of stuff.)

The site may have been inhabited by humans as early as the Bronze Age (3200 BC – 1200 BC), but the ancient city is thought to have been settled around 333 BC. Around 64 BC, ancient Jerash was conquered for the Romans by Pompey the Great. Jerash grew in size and wealth, peaking  in size during the early 3rd century AD, and then eventually declined after a devastating earthquake in 747.

Continue reading Jerash: The Most Spectacular Roman Ruins You’ve Never Heard Of →