Petra I

Our next stop was Petra, a former Nabatean City nestled in a series of winding sandstone canyons. At one point as many as 30,000 citizens lived here, growing wealthy on trade with the East (China), the South (Arabia) and West.

After walking for a good ten minutes through winding canyon walls atop a still extant Roman road (the Romans took over around the year 100 AD) we arrived at Petra's most famous view. It was clear the architects who designed it must have carefully planned it's location. The facade of the treasury building opens up to you like a veil being lifted: at first only a sliver is visible, reappearing and disappearing behind the curves in the walls and then finally opening up before you.