Petra Beyond the Treasury

Everyone photographs the Treasury and roughly nobody walks past it. Which is odd, because the Nabataeans carved a whole city back there: eight hundred rock-cut steps to the High Place of Sacrifice, a Roman street, tombs the colour of raw salmon, and at Siq al-Barid a village where farming in this region essentially began. These four take Petra in the order it deserves: the facade early and briefly, then upward, then outward, then slowly. Wear proper shoes. The sandstone steps are polished and there is no handrail worth the name.