After a night flight, we landed at Amman airport. The first stop of our journey was Madaba, a town located about 30 km from the airport. Once settled in our hotel in the middle of the night, we were already exhausted, so we set the alarm in order to not to skip breakfast. But waking up after the hustle and bustle of the night is quite hard. We were about to give up when we suddenly felt the responsibility of our travel schedule that we had planned so carefully. We got up. It was a beautiful day, and breakfast was served on the hotel terrace.
The view was amazing: on a clear sky, the roofs of the ocher-colored houses of the city stand out. We could not wait to start discovering it. Madaba is called the “city of mosaics” because of the great quantity of artifacts it contains. The most famous mosaic is the “Map of Palestine”, in the Orthodox Church of St George. The Shrine of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist and the bell tower are certainly worth a visit: from here, you can admire a beautiful view of the city.
Another stop of that day was Mount Nebo, described in the Bible as the place where Moses died and was buried. Fated to not to enter the promised land, Moses could only admire it from afar and then die peacefully, as they say, on Mount Nebo.
From here, we headed to Bethany. Years and years of archaeological research, studies on the biblical and evangelical texts have led to the discovery, in 1996, of the place where it is believed that the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist took place.
After having grown up as a Catholic, after watching countless films on Jesus’ life at Christmas and Easter, after seeing the epic “Ten Commandments” movie hundreds of times, now I finally have visited those places in person and I don’t deny they had made a certain impact on me.
