{"id":279812,"date":"2022-09-27T13:06:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/highlights\/castles"},"modified":"2022-09-27T13:06:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T11:06:18","slug":"castles","status":"publish","type":"highlights","link":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/destinations\/middle-east\/jordan\/castles","title":{"rendered":"Castles"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Crusader Castles<\/h2>\n<p>Admire the many impressive crusader castles that are <a href=\"\/?continent_category=jordanie-reizen\"><strong>Jordan<\/strong><\/a> rich like <strong>Kerak<\/strong> and <strong>Shobak<\/strong>, the remains of what was an important passageway in the region for Crusaders on their journey to the Holy Land. Visit the castle of Shobak beautifully situated on a hill in a secluded landscape.<\/p>\n<p>Traverse the underground corridor system of Kerak and then reward yourself with unforgettable views. Kerak was one of the country&#8217;s most important castles because of its strategic location near Palestine, the Dead Sea and many caravan routes.<\/p>\n<p>On the pilgrimage route to Mecca and Medina, you will find the 16<sup>&#8211;<\/sup>century <strong>Aqaba<\/strong> Fortress, also known as the Mamluk Castle of the town of Aqaba.<\/p>\n<h2>Desert Castles<\/h2>\n<p>East of <strong>Amman<\/strong> are a number of desert retreats, built in the eighth century by Umayyad princes, including palaces, hunting huts and bath houses. These retreats, together also called desert castles, were part of a chain stretching from north of Damascus to Khirbet-al-Mafjar. What these desert castles have in common is the lack of defensive architectural design which leads one to assume that the castles were built as recreational retreats.<\/p>\n<p>Admire the following castles: <strong>Umayyad castles<\/strong>, <strong>Qasr Amra<\/strong> (UNESCO site), <strong>Qasr Al-Azraq<\/strong>, <strong>Qasr Al-Kharana<\/strong>, <strong>Qasr Al Hallabat<\/strong>, <strong>Qasr Al-Mushatta <\/strong>and <strong>Umm Ar-Rasas church<\/strong> (UNESCO site).<\/p>\n<p>Azraq Castle, or Qasr Al-Azraq, is located at a strategically important site, an oasis, the only source of water in a vast desert area. Unlike other desert castles, you can see this castle from afar but it is located on the busy main street of the village of Azraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crusader settlements and castles in the desert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":274842,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"country":[645],"highlight_category":[600],"continent_category":[651],"class_list":["post-279812","highlights","type-highlights","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-jordan","highlight_category-hoogtepunt-en","continent_category-middle-east"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/279812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/highlights"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/279812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=279812"},{"taxonomy":"highlight_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlight_category?post=279812"},{"taxonomy":"continent_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/continent_category?post=279812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}