Petra
Before the history — the practicalities
Getting in
- Surface
- Compacted gravel from the gate, then Roman paving and cut stone through the Siq to the Treasury
- Gradient
- Gentle continuous descent through the Siq, roughly 4% average; the return is the same climb
- Transfer points
- Horse-drawn carriage from the visitor centre to the Treasury plaza; electric buggies on the main street
- Seating
- Benches at roughly 200 m intervals along the Siq and at the Treasury plaza
- Shade
- Canyon walls shade the Siq until midday; open sun on the valley floor beyond
- Toilets
- Visitor centre, Treasury plaza, and the Basin restaurant at the trail's end
- Guides & orientation
- Tactile relief model at the gate; licensed guides and an audio guide available at the visitor centre
- Booking lead time
- Carriage transfer — book 48 hours ahead through the visitor centre
Why 4/5: carriage and buggy access runs the full 4 km from gate to Basin restaurant, and the main valley floor is broadly level. The score is not 5 because the Monastery and the High Place of Sacrifice are reached only by long rock-cut stairways with no alternative route, and the Siq's paving is worn slick in places after rain.
The place
What you are walking into
The Siq does the work a curtain does in a theatre. For 1.2 kilometres the canyon walls climb to 80 metres while the path narrows to the width of a small room, and then the rock simply stops and the Treasury's forty-metre facade stands in the gap, lit from above. The Nabataeans engineered this arrival on purpose — water channels cut into both walls of the Siq fed the city while the approach compressed every visitor, trader and king into single file.
Petra was the capital of a trading empire that moved frankincense from Arabia to the Mediterranean, and its wealth is written in stone: 800-plus carved tombs, a 6,000-seat theatre cut into the mountainside, and a colonnaded street that once ran between markets. The city faded after Rome rerouted the trade and an earthquake in 363 CE broke the water system.
The Treasury is the postcard, but the city keeps going for kilometres past it. The Street of Facades, the Royal Tombs and the great temple complex all sit on the valley floor along a mostly level, mostly paved route. The Monastery — larger than the Treasury and higher — asks for 800 rock-cut steps and gives back a view across the whole Shara range.
Go early or late. At midday the sandstone flattens to beige; in the first and last two hours of light it moves through rose, copper and blood-orange, which is when you understand why the Bedouin call it the Rose City.
Close your eyes
Audio portrait
Footsteps ring off sandstone in the Siq. Wind funnels through the canyon in low sighs, carriage wheels clatter somewhere behind, and when the walls open at the Treasury the echo suddenly widens, like a door opening into a bigger room.
Practical
Hours, passes, timing
- Opening hours
- 6:00–18:00 summer, 6:00–16:00 winter; night visits Mon, Wed, Thu
- Jordan Pass
- Included — entry covered by the Jordan Pass
- Best time
- First two hours after opening, or after 15:00 when the coaches leave