Jordan from an Amman Base: Petra, Wadi Rum & Mount Nebo, 4 Nights

Our representative meets you inside the arrivals hall at Queen Alia International Airport, before immigration, and helps you through the entry formalities, so look for the name board before you join a queue. You are then driven to your hotel in Amman. Dinner is at the hotel. Meals included today: dinner.

This is the longest day of the trip. After an early breakfast you drive about three hours south to Petra, the rock-cut capital of the Nabataeans, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. You walk in through the Siq, a narrow gorge about a kilometre long between high sandstone walls, which opens onto the Treasury. Beyond it the site is very large: hundreds of carved tombs, a theatre, temples, sacrificial altars and a colonnaded street. A short horse ride from the visitor centre to the mouth of the Siq is part of the entrance ticket for adults if you want it. In the afternoon you continue to Wadi Rum, the desert the local Bedouin call the Valley of the Moon and T. E. Lawrence described as "vast, echoing and god-like". A two-hour ride in an open Bedouin 4x4 takes you out among the sandstone mountains and red dunes. You stay the night at a desert camp, where dinner is served. Meals included today: breakfast and dinner.

After breakfast at the camp you drive north to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth and one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world. Entry to a resort beach and its swimming pools is included, with a towel, so you can float in the sea and rinse off afterwards; lunch at the resort is not included. In the afternoon you continue to Amman for dinner and the night at your hotel. Meals included today: breakfast and dinner.

The day starts with a two-hour tour of downtown Amman with the Citadel, the Roman Theatre and the Archaeological and Folklore museums. You then drive to Mount Nebo, the hill associated with Moses, which looks out over the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, and on a clear day as far as Jerusalem. The next stop is Madaba and St George's Church, whose floor holds the sixth-century mosaic map of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. You return to Amman for dinner and the night. Meals included today: breakfast and dinner.

After breakfast you are driven to Queen Alia International Airport, where the package services end. Meals included today: breakfast.