Mount Nebo is a high ridge about 10 km west of Madaba, rising to 817 m, with the Dead Sea below to the west and on a clear day a view across the Jordan Valley to the towers of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It is one of the most religiously charged places in Jordan, and the obvious main excursion from town.
The Memorial Church of Moses on the summit shelters a fine sixth-century mosaic floor of hunting and pastoral scenes. Outside, the Brazen Serpent sculpture by Giovanni Fantoni — a stylised cross with a serpent coiled around it — frames the view to the west. Go early in the morning before the haze rises off the Jordan Valley.