I am posting a few pictures that I took in Jabal Al Lweibdeh and downtown Amman some time ago. I have been wanting to do this for the longest time but it just did not happen. For your amusement, every other picture has a brief story or description.

Let’s start with Jabal Al Lweibdeh pictures since they are the oldest ones. The day these pictures were taken I was just walking aimlessly in Lweibdeh and snapping shots. My camera’s batteries were dying on me and the lens was a bit smudged but fortunately, these elements combined with the beautiful light in the area at the time made for some unique pictures (at least that is what I like to believe).

The romantic setting in Lweibdeh is largely due to the fact that the area itself is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Amman. Most of the buildings are pretty old and so they convey an impression of what glorious Amman looked like in the past.

It is equally interesting that Lweibdeh has developed into a cultural seat for the city. It houses art galleries, cultural and linguistic centers, a national museum, and several other foundations of the type.

Ah! What I would give to live in this spectacular place! But let us leave this wishful thinking aside and move onward to shots from downtown Amman. This first picture is of a library right next to Sabeel Al Hureyyat, it is called Khazanat Al Jaheth. For those of you who do not know the association, Al Jaheth was a major Arab thinker who composed several books. Now Al Jaheth was very fond of books and he kept a large number of them in a library of his, the Khazanah. Irony would have it, however, that his fondness for books and knowledge would kill him. Al Jaheth met his end when his Khazanah of books fell over him.

Khazanat Al Jaheth was closed that day — it was still Eid Al Adha holiday (not a Friday as I had previously posted).

This above is a view of some shops in downtown Amman. I took all of these pictures from a moving car so I am quite surprised, and happy, that they turned out this way. Following are two pictures of a marvelous facade that I am absolutely in love with:

I kept fantasizing about owning that place with the facade and all. As you might have guessed by now, I have quite a fertile imagination. Now for some general views of downtown Amman:

And this here is one of my favorite pictures ever, but I am yet to learn why:

The final picture is of Balat Al Rasheed Cafe. This place used to be called “Maqha Al Jami3a Al 3arabeyya” — Arab League Cafe, but the name was changed. The current name also has a historical association. Balat Al Rasheed is a place where people from different backgrounds — laymen, intellectuals, poets, writers and tourists — all meet.

To read my previous picturesque post on Downtown Amman, click here!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Picturesque. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.