We started off by travelling to Karak, a small city south of Amman. The drive to Karak was simply amazing. It was a small windy road at times, surrounded my massive mountains and stunning views on either side. It was kind of scary at times, but we took it easy and took in all of the beautiful views. We got into the city of Karak and it had a great vibe about it. The people were very friendly and there were many other tourists around.
We went into the Karak Castle, and it was amazing. The castle was actually built in about 1140, and is located at an ideal spot, east of the Jordan River, where one could control Bedouin herders as well as the trade routes from Damascus to Egypt and Mecca.
In 1183 Saladin besieged the castle. The siege took place during a wedding and Saladin decided not to target the chamber of the newlyweds while the rest of the castle was attacked. The Karak castle was finally captured by Saladin in 1189.
The castle itself was massive and I don't think we had a chance to walk through the whole thing, but what we saw was amazing. The views from the top were equally amazing.
Another castle we visited was the Ajlun Castle, which was built by the nephew of Saladin, in about 1184-1185. The fortress is considered to be one of the very few built to protect the country against Crusader attacks from the south and the west. It also controlled the three main passages that led to the Jordan Valley and protected the communication routes between south Jordan and Syria.
Once again, the castle was massive, and I couldn't imagine people actually living in it. We looked around various chambers and climbed up to the top of it, which again, was equally impressive as the inside. It was so beautiful up there, as you could see different borders to various surrounding countries: Syria, Palestine, etc. Someone remarked to me how nice it would be to go up there with your morning tea/coffee everyday!
The last castle I'll mention here is the Aqaba Castle, located on the port of Aqaba.
Aqaba itself is about a 3-4 hour drive south of Amman. People come to Aqaba to enjoy the beaches and take part in various water sports such as swimming, waterskiing, fishing, sailboating, deep sea diving, etc. We ended up walking along the beach and got suckered into taking a ride on a glass boat, which has a glass at the bottom of the boat, so you can see the sealife below. It was actually a great ride for us, as we were able to relax and take in the beauty of the water and see the fish and other gorgeous sealife below us. The port borders with Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, so again, it was pretty amazing to be sitting in a boat, with all of these countries around us.
As for the castle, it is part of the ruins of the Islamic city of Ayla and the castle was constructed on the orders of the Mameluke Sultan Qansuh Ghori in the early sixteenth century. The castle was not as big as the others we saw, but still well worth the visit. The huge door at the front was something that caught my eye initially, and I felt as if I was in a fairy tale, since as a child I had always listened to stories of make believe castles, and now I was actually standing real life castles! Alhamdulillah!
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