Experience the best of Madaba

Madaba stands on a low plateau on the King's Highway, the old route through the hills of Jordan, and is a town where Byzantine mosaics lie under churches and houses. St George's Church holds the best known of them, a sixth-century map of the Holy Land made from small coloured stones, which shows Jerusalem, rivers, towns and fish swimming in the Jordan. The Archaeological Park, with the Church of the Virgin and the Hippolytus Hall, displays more floors.

Mount Nebo, a short drive to the north-west, is the ridge from which Moses is said to have seen the Promised Land, with a view toward the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley on clear days. Mukawir, the hilltop fortress of Machaerus where, according to the historian Josephus, John the Baptist was imprisoned, lies to the south-west, and the mosaics of Umm ar-Rasas, a World Heritage site, lie to the south-east.

Jordanian food is simple and generous: mansaf, lamb cooked in dried yoghurt and served over rice, hummus, falafel, knafeh and Arabic coffee scented with cardamom. Spring and autumn are mild, while summer is hot and winter cool with some rain.