As the old U.S. Negro spiritual puts it, "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumblin´ down," referring to the famous Old Testament assault of the Israelites under their leader Joshua (aka Yehoshua, heir to Moses) against the Canaanites. This was later determined by historians to be apocryphal - for example, those famous walls, 10,000 years old, are still here for the visiting - but it´s an example of the millennia of lore and history which has left its legacy in perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world (back to around 10,000 BCE). Now with a population of around 21,000, Palestinian-Authority-ruled Jericho is located in the lush, palm-filled Jordan Valley a 45-minute drive from Jerusalem (it´s also the world´s lowest-altitude city), and its attractions for visitors are archaeological as well as biblical, with sites such as Hisham´s Palace, three miles north of city center, is an Islamic Umayyad dynasty "desert castle" complex covering 150 acres and built in the first half of the 8th century (the bath house here is known for its mosaics); the Roman-era Herod´s Winter Palace with its mosaics, frescoes, pools, and gardens, and especially the ruins of UNESCO World Heritage Tell es-Sultan (above), the core of ancient Jericho, including the aforementioned walls, dwellings, and a 28-foot conical tower that´s considered among humanity´s earliest stone monuments. And of course there´s the biblical, as well, most notably the Mount of Temptation (Jebel Quruntul), where Jesus was said to have spent 40 days fasting in the desert and was tempted by Satan (including the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Temptation, next to the cave where JC supposedly hung out, and connected to the city by a cable car) and Qasr al-Yahud on the Jordan River just 20 minutes from Jericho, traditionally held to be where John the Baptist baptized JC and operated as a park by the Israelis. Another worthwhile outlying site, about an hour south, is the still active Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. George of Choziba, hanging from the cliff of Wadi Qelt gulch since the 5th century and reachable via footbridge. And of course less than a half hour away lies the shore of the Dead Sea.
Read more in my post The Top 10 Musts in the West Bank of Palestine - Plus 1 More.
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