Day One (Tuesday 4/8)
We land in Basra, Iraq’s only outlet to the sea. From this portal city, Sinbad the Sailor launched his seven voyages under the glamorous wings of the Arabian Nights. We will receive our hotel rooms and meet our companions, then we will sleep off our jetlag and prepare for our adventure.
Day Two (Wednesday 4/9)
After breakfast, we check out and head to Nasiriya where, appropriately, we visit the first city-state in history: Ur. We will visit its Ziggurat that was the center of the worship of the moon goddess and see the ruins of Abraham’s birthplace. We will take a boat tour in the marshlands that are watered by both the Tigris and the Euphrates and eat grilled fish in an ancient islet [included]. We will check in our hotel rooms and call it a day.
Day Three (Thursday 4/10)
We will check out our rooms and depart, after breakfast, to Najaf. Although Iraq is a secular country, this upscale capital of the Shiite world and resting place of Iraq’s patron saint, Muhammad’s cousin Ali, is run by the religious establishment, which means that as long as you’re not in your hotel room, you will be required to dress according to the Islamic code of modesty. Visiting Ali’s golden-domed shrine is optional, but the city is an appropriate layover on our journey north.
Day Four (Friday 4/11)
None of our bags have got the chance to be fully unpacked yet, but the progress will impress us. We will check out after breakfast and head to the tomb of Ezekiel, and hope we can see enough of the former Jewish synagogue before the Friday prayer time. After that, it’s a short drive to the very highlight of our tour: Babylon. We will see Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, the Procession Street that used to go through the Ishtar Gate (where the Jewish captives were led in fulfillment to the words of their own prophets) and see the ruins of Saddam Hussein’s palace. We keep moving north and check in our Baghdad hotel rooms (and God help us with the traffic.)
Day Five (Saturday 4/12)
We leave our luggage in the hotel, and have the best lunch [included] that you will ever have tasted in your entire life, prepared by a native (who happened to be my own mom.) We will visit the ruins of the Persian palace in Ctesiphon, whose invasion by the Arab Muslims in AD 636 marked the end of the Persian rule of ancient Iraq and the incorporation of Iraq into the Islamic empire. We return to our hotel rooms (well, you return. I will stay with my mom.)
Day Six (Sunday 4/13)
We visit the Iraq Museum and see finds and artifacts from Iraq’s different civilizations, and be impressed how Iraq’s history will sound a lot like our more familiar good Old Testament narrative. We will cross the Tigris into Old Baghdad, and visit Al-Mutanabbi Street, the book market named after the Arab world’s most prominent poet, and purchase our souvenirs. We will have our lunch and head back to our hotel rooms.
Day Seven (Monday 4/14)
We will bid the City of Aladdin farewell and leave our hotel rooms after breakfast, and head north to Samarra to see its spiral minaret that has long been portrayed as the Tower of Babel. We continue north until we receive our hotel rooms in Erbil
Day Eight (Tuesday 4/15)
We will attempt to see as much of ancient Nineveh as we can: the Tomb of Jonah, the Library of Ashurbanipal (where the tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world’s first literary composition, was discovered,) the ancient city wall and the Palace of Sennacherib, the king who attempted to conquer Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah. Return to our hotel.
Day Nine (Wednesday 4/16)
We will drive farther yet north to Alqosh and visit the Tomb of Nahum, the Israelite prophet who foretold the fall of Nineveh in a Bible book. by now, we will have covered Iraq literally south to north.
Day Ten (Thursday 4/17) departure.
