January 7, 2026

Milano, Italia > Amman, Jordan

Travel day. Today is the official first day of our Jordan & Egypt excursion. The next sixteen days should be very interesting. Last time I was in Jordan was 1970, yes that is right fifty-six years ago. Then I was just a high school graduate on a summer romp. I wore cut-off jeans, T-shirt and boots. Just roamed through the desert to the south of Amman and the Dead Sea. The deepest we got into Jordan was Basira. However, that is a totally different story.

I got up and took another nice long warm bath. I worked on the blog until 07:00 when I walked over to the terminal to get a cappuccino and brioche. We have found that the best place to get one’s morning caffeine at the airport is Bindi. It is a typical Italian bar. In the morning it is coffee and brioche. This is where all the employees stop to pickup there morning coffee. It is located on the departures level, between the two groups of check-in areas.

This morning the only thing I wanted was a cappuccino and brioche con marmellata (apricot jam). It was very quick and easy. It is difficult to understand how here in Italy, even at a “fast food joint” like Bindi the brioche are incredibly fresh, flaky and flavorful. The nice part is that the caffè matches the brioche.

Afterwards I headed back to the hotel. Mary woke up just after 08:00. We worked on packing things up and at 09:15 we met V outside our door and the three of walked over to Bindi for their morning cappuccino and brioche. We returned to the hotel and agreed to meet at noon and head over to check-in. Last night I got an offer to upgrade to “Crown Class” (aka business class), and I put in a bid. I was surprised that I won, so at least this morning we are going business class.

The advantage of going business class is access to the lounge and the better seating on the plane. Royal Jordanian doesn’t have its own lounge here they use the Montale Executive Lounge. We have had access to this lounge before. It is a nice place to sit and wait for your flight. They have good food and drink.

We had about two hours to “kill” after getting through security and passport control. Check-in to our flight with our American passports, leave through security and passport control on our Italian passports, and board the plane on our American passports. It can be a little confusing, but they get so upset when you use the wrong one. We thought it was best to travel in Jordan and Egypt on our American passports, but we are beginning to wonder if that is such a good idea anymore.

Our flight departs at 15:45. The boarding pass says the gate opens at 14:45. So we headed down to the gate at 14:15. We are way out at gate B71. Probably was far from the lounge as you can get and still be in the airport. We got to the gate about 14:30, but there was no activity at all at the gate and no dedicated seating for gate B71. However, there was seating nearby which we took advantage of.

It had just gone 14:40 when the gate personnel showed up. We stood and waited by the gate for a few minutes before they called the Crown Class passengers to board. The seating on the plane is a bit different in Crown Class the seats are “off-set” meaning that A & B don’t sit next to each other, or side by side, but one seat is slightly ahead of the other. Royal Jordanian Airlines uses the Embraer 195-E2 which seats a total of 122 passengers. 12 in Crown Class and the rest in economy.

We take our seats, order up dinner, and we are off. The menu was interesting in that it was in Arabic and English. The offerings where most “English” is style. I ordered the Butter Chicken; tandoori chicken cooked in a creamy butter masala sauce served with white rice. Mary tried to order the same thing, but they were already out of this, so I gave up my butter chicken to her and went with the grilled fillet mignon served with grilled vegetables, mashed potatoes and a mushroom sauce. V was across the isle and because of the offsetting of the seats I couldn’t see what he got.

After dinner there was a little time for napping. It is a three-hour-forty-minute flight, so the nap only last about an hour. We landed in Amman, Jordan just after 21:30, having lost two hours on the clock. Now the really nice part of being in Crown Class is that you deplane first, the bus takes you and only you and your fellow Crown Class passengers to the terminal. You get “fast track” for immigration.

Our airport assistance met us shortly after w reach the terminal. He walked us through the visa process and through “fast track” immigration. They we walked down to the baggage claim and waited for our luggage. It was a bit of a problem because some of the luggage come up and the belt stopped. Thankfully we had the assistance which spoke to the baggage people who “found” the cart with the remainder of our flights luggage. For a minute there we were concerned we were going to spend the next sixteen days in the same clothes.

Our assistance then took us out to meet our driver. The luggage was loaded into a Hyundai Van, then us and we were off to Amman. It was about a forty-minute drive into the Fairmont. We stopped along the way and let our assistance out at a bus stop along the highway.

The Fairmont is a beautiful hotel all decorated for Christmas. We were checked into our room and tried to go to the restaurant for a light meal before heading to bed, but it was after 23:00 and the restaurant was closed. So, we headed up to the room and ordered room service. Not that we were only hungry but felt getting something to eat before going to bed would be a good idea.

Mary ordered a Tomato and Burrata salad, V ordered an assortment of hot mezze (kibbeh, cheese fatayer, spinach fatayer with tahini dip), I ordered the mozzarella sticks and a cheese platter. Now kibbeh is a Lebanese or Syrian dish of bulgur wheat, onions, ground meat and spices including pine nuts, shaped into a round ball and deep fried. A fatayer is a meat pie, although it can be filled with spinach or feta or akkawi cheese. Also, a popular middle eastern dish. In South America they are called empanadas árabes.

It was after midnight when we finished our “dinner” and headed to bed looking forward to an adventure in Amman in the morning.

Buonanotte e ciao

Enrico e Maria