Is Amman LGBTQ-friendly?

The odd thing about Amman is that two men walking arm in arm down King Faisal Street draws no attention, because Jordanian male friends do it all the time, but a kiss on the same pavement would stop traffic. Straight couples get the same treatment, so the rule here is about public affection in general, not your partner's gender, and that cuts both ways. If you hold hands on Rainbow Street on a Thursday night, when the strip fills with families and teenagers from West Amman, someone will probably stare and someone might film it. On a weekday morning in Jabal Al Weibdeh, with the cardamom smell drifting out of the coffee carts on Paris Circle, nobody seems to care much. Treat Amman like a conservative relative's house: warm welcome, door closed at night.

For a couple with split interests, the downtown core works well. The history buff takes the morning at the Amman Citadel, where the Temple of Hercules columns frame the whole of Jabal al-Qal'a and the call to prayer bounces off seven hills at once. The foodie heads down the steps to Hashem on King Faisal Street for falafel, hummus and mint tea, a full table for under JD 3 (about US$4.25). Meet at Habibah on Al-Malek Al-Hussein Street for kunafa, the cheese still stretching and the syrup hot enough to burn your tongue. Then climb together to the Roman Theatre's top rows around 4pm, when the limestone turns honey-coloured and the steps still hold the day's warmth. Mid-October afternoons sit around 22°C under clear skies, so the climb is comfortable.

Dinner is where Amman does romance well, and quietly. Fakhr El-Din, in a 1950s villa on Taha Hussein Street in Jabal Amman, is the anniversary pick: ask for the garden terrace, order the raw kibbeh and grilled halloumi, and budget around JD 30 a head (roughly US$42). Staff there have seated same-sex couples for years without a flicker. Sufra on Rainbow Street serves mansaf in a restored house, but its terrace gets loud with tour groups after 8pm, so book a 6:30pm table. For a nightcap, the cafés around Paris Circle in Weibdeh stay open late, and they are the closest thing Amman has to a relaxed queer-friendly crowd.

The honest trade-off sits outside the city. The big Dead Sea resorts, 50 minutes west at Sweimeh, are anonymous enough that a double room for two women or two men raises nothing. Wadi Rum desert camps are more personal, and some Bedouin hosts assume friends sharing a tent, so book through the camp website and request one double bed in writing. Salt, the UNESCO-listed Ottoman town 30 km northwest, is a good half-day for the history half of a couple, but it's more conservative than Weibdeh, so keep it low-key there.