The weather wasn't as bad as forecast this morning, but it was still pretty grim. After breakfast we headed into the town to have a look at St George's Greek Orthodox Church. The church contains a collection of mosaics depicting biblical scenes and most famously the remnants of a once huge Mosaic map of the Holy land.
The mosaic map was created in 560 AD, was believed to be about 25m long by 6m wide and contained more than 2 million pieces. Only one third of the mosaic has survived, but you can clearly make out a variety of biblical sites.
From St George's, it was onward to the archaeological park to see more beautiful mosaics. The park encompasses the remains of two more churches, the Church of the Virgin Mary and the Church of the Prophet Elias, and an older structure known as Hippolytus Hall. Within the old buildings, the floors are literally covered with intricately designed mosaics.
Realising that only two stops to look at mosaics wasn't going to be enough, we made a brief visit to the Burnt Palace and Martyr's Church, before calling it a day and going for a well earned cappuccino. Our coffee and lunch break came not a moment too soon as the rain had started to fall.
While wandering round the old town looking at the tourist tat that was for sale in the shops, we realised what was missing about Jordan, there are no mopeds! People on mopeds have been our constant companions and occasional annoyances over the last few months. In Jordan however there are none, which may explain why Jordanian drivers have a bad reputation with cyclists, they are not used to sharing the road with smaller slower moving vehicles. It is amazing that it has taken us this long to notice, but now the lack of small engined, pedestrian worrying, often overloaded, recklessly ridden mopeds is almost eerie!
Full to the brim with churches, mosaics and cappuccinos, we headed back to the hotel. I am sure that we will manage to squeeze another Mosaic in tomorrow.
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