This is a tough one……some of the most interesting festivals and events around the Kingdom seem to happen in secret. There are some special events you can do any day, or each week, or anytime you want. There are also annual festivals, concerts, street parties and celebrations….these are the ones which are inexplicably hard to find out about, but we’ve tried to include everything we know about. If you’ve heard of a special event you’d like to know more about, and you can’t find it listed below, just use our response form to ask us for details. If we don’t know, we’d love to find out!
Here’s the latest information we have about special events planned in Jordan. For up-to-the-minute information, please check with us for schedule changes, reservations, prices and the like.
Daily events—
RACE Performance (Roman Army and Chariot Experience)
Sit where the Romans sat
2,000 years ago in the Jerash Hippodrome to watch a marvelous show which the
Roman inhabitants might have watched. This show brings the Roman ruins alive!
The show includes a demonstration of
Roman Army tactics and weaponry (they even call out the orders in Latin), a
series of gladiatorial contests, and finally a thrilling 7-lap chariot race
around the Hippodrome. Lots of great photo ops here—after the performance you
can go down on the track of the Hippodrome to chat with the performers, try on a
Roman helmet or shield (very heavy!) or even take a spin in a chariot.
Shows scheduled twice daily, 11.00 and 14.00, except afternoon performance only on Fridays and no performances on Tuesdays.
Petra by Night
A romantic
way to see Petra, Petra by Night is not your typical sound-and-light
show. No colored laser beams, no
booming amplified music or recorded actor narratives—just a remarkable chance to
experience Petra as the ancient spice caravan travelers must have seen it. The
mile-long entry gorge (Siq) of Petra, mysterious enough in the daytime,
becomes downright fairy-tale magical at night, lit only by flickering
luminarios. Ditto for Petra’s imposing Khazneh (the Treasury)
monument. There’s a little music (Bedouin shepherd’s flute), a little
storytelling by one of the local guides, but this experience is more about
atmosphere than content. Just think of it as “organic sound and light.”
If your schedule works out correctly, this is a terrific way to see Petra before your first regular daytime visit.
Three times weekly—Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, 20.30
Petra Kitchen
Like any home
kitchen, The Petra Kitchen is a
relaxed, informal atmosphere where you’ll gather to prepare an evening meal,
working alongside local women under the supervision of a local chef. Each
evening meal includes soup, cold and hot mezza and salads, and a main course—all
typical Jordanian dishes. You will get
an inside glimpse of the secrets behind the famous regional cuisine of the
Levant.
The Petra Kitchen offers an evening of learning, fun and a very special dining experience, with each dish gaining the special flavor of a reward well-earned. Great care has been taken to make The Petra Kitchen a truly Jordanian experience—right down to the furnishings, all crafted in Jordan, the tableware, all produced by the Iraq al Amir Women’s Co-operative, and the aprons and table linens, all hand-embroidered by the Jordan River Foundation.
You’ll get printed recipes for all the dishes you cook, so you can go home and invite all your friends and family to see how you spent your vacation. They’ll surely like it better than a slide show!
Lessons nightly, time varies according to the season. Reservations required, as space is limited
"Married to a Bedouin" special tours
Meet Marguerite van Geldermalsen, author of the true-life adventure story Married to a Bedouin. You can join Marguerite for a special tour of her own Petra, including the cave where she lived and raised a family with Mohammed, her charming Bedouin husband. Her stories about the joys and challenges she met learning to become a part of the Bedouin tribe which lived in Petra's caves will cause you to look at Petra in a completely different way.
Advance reservations for specially guided Petra tours essential.
Festivals and annual events—
A festival of
song, dance, theater, poetry and culture, with performers from all around the
world, the first Jerash Festival was
launched in 1981 as the brainchild of Queen Noor al-Hussein. The 3-week
festival offers a variety of nightly performances in Jerash’s fine Roman
theaters (unbelievably good acoustics!), for Jerash Forum and Artemis Temple,
and in latter years the multiplicity of acts has opened a new venue in the Royal
Pavilion for Performing Arts in Amman.
The 2007 silver jubilee celebration of the
Jerash Festival will begin 25 July, and run through 17 August. Scheduled
events and performances include "International Oud Day," a performance of
Cinderella by the Moscow Ballet, the Jollanar troupe of Syria and MESTO-USA.
Annual, 3 weeks late July/early August
Distant Heat
Gaining
popularity by leaps and bounds, Distant Heat is a night of disco madness in the
desert of Wadi Rum. A very professional
set-up, each year (since 2003) the program has featured world-ranked Top 20 DJs,
dinner/breakfast, light show and even sleeping tents for those who have
forgotten how to party all night long. Noisy and crazy, it’s the ultimate in
“back to nature” clubbing…..don’t worry about noise complaints from the
neighbors. The only creatures who might be annoyed are camels, and if they
can’t take a joke…….
Rave on!
Annual, late July (26 July 2007)
New Year’s Eve Bash in Wadi Rum
Tired of the
same old predictable New Year parties? Ready for something totally different?
Petra Moon has been putting together a New Year’s Eve Bash every year
since the last century (we started this in 1999, and many thanks to Reid Glover
for the perfect suggestion).
Bedouin musicians, folklore show, fireworks, Petra Moon’s trademark lavish dinner and breakfast buffets, camel rides, dancing around the campfire……well, you get the idea.
No
guarantees on the weather….some years it’s been cold enough to make dancing
compulsory, but there have also been years when nobody even wore jackets.
Go figure……
The only thing we can guarantee is a New Year’s Eve Bash unlike any other you’ve ever been to!
Annual, 31 December Tent space limited, reservations essential