Seven hundred metres above the Jordan Valley, on a mountain now called Mount Nebo, Moses is said to have sighted the promised land of Canaan before dying. Thanks to Google Maps, we didn’t spend forty years wandering in the desert before arriving. Instead, we drove up the winding road from Sowaya and were there in about 30 minutes. Modernity does have its perks.

When it comes to sightseeing, I’m definitely Toy Story’s Woody to Veronica’s Buzz Lightyear. Bounding around looking for new things to see, I’m always rushing around taking just one more picture. As the perfect foil to Woody, Buzz looks after the kids when they (or Buzz) start complaining about getting bored or tired. Usually that means I race off on my own, so as not to make everyone’s life completely unbearable, arriving back drenched in sweat from being a power tourist.

It is said that Jordan has some of the best preserved Roman ruins outside of Italy. While this mostly relates to the ruins in Jerash, an hour or so north of Amman, the capital city has its own fair share of quality Roman ruins. Our own Roman recce began in downtown Amman with a visit to the Roman Theatre.

Over the next six months or so that we plan being on the road, we’re booked into a reasonably wide range of accommodation types. Most have been booked through www.booking.com, which, when I was doing price comparisons, always came out as the cheapest on identical properties. Apart from the odd hotel-stay, we have opted for apartment style “living”. This seems the cheapest way for us to travel outside of staying in hostels, which Veronica vetoed by saying she’d take me hostage if I booked anything along those lines.

Amman is a city often overlooked by people visiting Jordan. When you’ve got uber-famous sites such as Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea in your stable, not to mention the Jerash Ruins, Karnak Temple and Red Sea diving, it’s easy to see why. Our experience so far is that anyone who invests the time in Jordan’s capital city will, however, be amply rewarded.