Travelling to Aqaba from abroad essentially requires that you spend a night in Jordan's capital, Amman.

In about 250 BC, the city of Amman was renamed Philadelphia -- "brotherly love" in Greek -- in honor of the conquering Emperor Ptolemy II, who married his own sister. Unfortunately, that was the last interesting thing that happened in the city. The name was later changed back to the Semitic Amman, and so it remains, just begging for another incestuous autocrat to come and spice things up again.

Right: Why you never see picture postcards of Amman, Exhibits I and II