Rainbow Street

About this place

A single street in Jabal Amman between the First Circle and downtown, and the place Ammanis go out to in the evening — a living quarter rather than a monument. Its official name is Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Street, but nobody uses it; the common name comes from the Rainbow Cinema that opened here in the 1940s, whose building still stands and still occasionally screens films. The street runs through the oldest quarter of modern Amman, lined with stone houses of the 1920s and 1930s with their balconies and stairs, many of them now cafés, restaurants, craft shops and small galleries. What you do here is sit and walk: cafés serving Arabic coffee and shisha on terraces looking over downtown, restaurants serving Jordanian food, and shops selling design and local products. From its edges the stone staircases — Al-Kalha steps among them — drop directly from Jabal Amman to downtown, and walking down them is the best way between the two and among the finest walks in the city. Souk Jara, a weekly market, is held here on Fridays through the summer, with crafts, food and music. It is liveliest at night and at weekends, and comparatively quiet by day. Walking it is free, and it lies minutes downhill from the Roman Theatre.