Where was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade filmed?

For generations of moviegoers, the climax of this rollicking adventure delivered one of cinema's great reveals: a rose-red temple emerging from a narrow desert gorge. The image was so striking that it turned a remote archaeological site into a global icon, and a must-see for travellers chasing the thrill of standing where the hero finally reaches his prize.

That temple is real, and it is one of the wonders of the ancient world. The film used Al-Khazneh, known as the Treasury, the towering rock-cut facade at Petra in southern Jordan. Carved directly into the desert cliff by the Nabataeans, its columned front stands in for the resting place of the Holy Grail at the story's climax, framed exactly as the camera found it, at the end of the slender canyon that leads into the lost city.

For set-jetters, Petra is a true bucket-list destination, reached on foot through the Siq, the long, winding gorge that delivers the same jaw-dropping first glimpse of the Treasury the film made famous. Give it a full day at least, and pair it with Jordan's wider desert wonders, the dramatic sands further south are a natural companion, for a trip that turns a childhood movie memory into one of travel's great moments.