Jericho lays claim to being the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth — people have lived here for at least ten thousand years. It sits in the Jordan Valley roughly 400 metres below sea level, making it also one of the lowest cities in the world. The combination of heat, springs, and fertile soil has drawn settlers since the Neolithic, and the layers of history are visible everywhere.
The main archaeological site is Tell es-Sultan, the ancient mound where excavations have uncovered a Neolithic stone tower built around 8000 BCE — for several millennia the tallest structure in the world. Nearby, the Mount of Temptation rises steeply from the plain — a cable car takes you up to the Monastery of the Temptation, a Greek Orthodox house clinging to the cliff face with views across the valley to the Dead Sea and Jordan beyond.
Modern Jericho is a quiet, palm-lined town that feels a world away from the intensity of Jerusalem, just 35 kilometres to the southwest. The pace is slow, the winters are warm, and the oranges and dates from the surrounding groves are superb. Hisham's Palace, an 8th-century Umayyad complex north of town, has one of the finest floor mosaics in the Middle East — the Tree of Life mosaic, showing a lion attacking a gazelle beneath a fruit tree, is worth the visit alone. The dramatic canyon of Wadi Qelt, with its cliff-face Byzantine monastery, is a rewarding half-day for those who want to walk through the Judaean Desert.