Little Petra and Shobak: half-days from Wadi Musa.

Little Petra

Siq al-Barid, the “cold canyon”, was a Nabataean suburb where caravans stopped on their way to Petra. It is a narrow canyon with houses, temples and cisterns carved into the walls, a small version of Petra without the crowds. Climb the steps to the Biclinium, a dining room carved into the rock, and look up: the ceiling still carries a painting of vines, flowers and birds from two thousand years ago, one of the few Nabataean paintings to survive.

There is no ticket. An hour is enough for the canyon itself. Just before it, the Neolithic village of Beidha, nine thousand years old, is one of the oldest farming settlements in the region.

Little Petra is also the start of the back trail into Petra, over the hills to the Monastery. See Petra in two days.

Shobak Castle

Shobak, called Montreal by the Crusaders, was built by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1115 on a round hill that commands the King’s Highway. It fell to Saladin in 1189 and was rebuilt by the Mamluks, whose inscriptions you can still read on the walls.

Walk the walls and the ruined church, and bring a torch for the tunnel that runs down from the castle to a spring at the foot of the hill: hundreds of steps cut into the rock in the dark. Allow an hour or two.

Getting there

Neither has public transport worth planning around. Take a taxi or a private car with the driver waiting, or include them on the way north to Dana or Amman. We arrange both: Little Petra and back and Shobak and Dana.

A day off from Petra

For a slow day between two days in Petra: Little Petra and Beidha in the morning, lunch back in Wadi Musa, Shobak in the afternoon light, and back in time for the hammam.