A Long Weekend in Jordan: Petra and the Dead Sea

Private transfer to Petra. On the road, with a stop at Madaba, where Byzantine mosaics in the Greek church of St. George chronicle the ancient Holy Land; and at Kerak, at the foot of the walls of a castle built by the Crusaders, and where 5000 of them successfully drove back Saladin's assaults.
Accommodation for two nights at the entrance to Petra, in a hotel fit for the 21st-century traveller - with spacious and comfortable rooms - but also with striking aspects of Nabataean architecture: the bar is located in a cave dating back 2000 years!
Included in the itinerary - Petra by night. Discovering the caravan city and its necropolis in the light of thousands of candles is an extraordinary and particularly moving experience.

Cut from sandstone, Petra is a mille-feuille, with layer upon layer of the history of the biblical, Arab, Roman and Byzantine worlds, including each era's architecture, urban planning, irrigation and international trade. After walking through it by candlelight, you'll visit the caravan city in daylight: the city and its necropolis lives up to travellers' wildest dreams.

Included in the itinerary - With a local driver/guide, you'll take a 4x4 to visit some of the iconic sites of Wadi Rum. Here, water and wind have carved out huge arches, described by Lawrence of Arabia as 'vast, echoing and God-like'. As well as this, there are the calm imposing rock formations which stretch out as far as the eye can see, the canyons and gueltas (water in rocky hollows), where some walls have been decorated by men.
You'll spend the night at the northern tip of the Dead Sea, in a traditional village transformed into a luxury hotel. The facilities are first-rate and it goes without saying that in a place like this, the spa would naturally have to be top-of-the-range as well: the medicinal qualities of the Dead Sea have been celebrated for a very long time. You can swim in the hotel's beautiful swimming pools, but you may prefer to go down to the beach, bathing in/on the healing water as it carries you aloft. From the gardens or from one of the restaurants, you'll find that this rocky lakeside landscape has a special feeling of peace.