Shiraz

On Sunday, we took an internal flight to Shiraz, which is in the South of Iran. Despite leaving home at 7 am, we missed the 8.30 am flight as traffic was jampacked, but they got us on a 9 am flight so no big deal.

The flight down was with Iran Aseman Airlines. I try and avoid non-international carriers, but the flight was fine. No idea what the meal was, but it tasted fine.

Parts of Iran, currently have s snow cover, as the photo from the plane shows.

Shiraz, is over 4,000 years old and is where Shiraz wines originated from, but today they have no grapes there. It is known as the city of poets, wine and flowers – and has significant Jewish and Christian communities. It was the capital of Persia for 30 years in the 18^th century.

This is Qavam House. It was the domicile of the Governor in the late 1800s. It was also later the home of Professor Arthur Pope, an American professor who lived in Iran for 50 years and was buried there. A museum is also on the grounds. This is well worth a visit. Lots of thousands of year old artefacts.

A typical mosaic in the House.

The famous room of mirrors

Victorian images on the ceiling

The Governor’s meeting room

This photo is taken from the local bazaar. That picture is not a painting. It is actually a carpet. Amazing artwork. Sadly they cost too much for me, but there was some incredible items on sale. I did manage to buy a fair few presents though. The bazaar merchants are not at all as pushy as in Turkey and Egypt, and it was very pleasant doing business. Hardly have to haggle too, as the prices are very reasonable.

This is the tomb of the poet Hafez, who died in 1390. A very popular place for locals to go on dates etc. Hafex is the most beloved poet in Persian culture.

And the actual tomb.

This is the other very famous poet’s tomb – Saadi, who died in 1291.

Hard to see much at night, but surrounded by massive gardens, so again a popular site.

The tomb also has a natural fishpond in the grounds. You go down a flight of stairs into a chamber (which is also a café now) and a local river flows through the middle of it, with many fish to be seen in the carved out pond.

By this time it was 7.30 pm so we had dinner at a popular restaurant. Iranian cusine (a mixture of Turkish and Lebanese is how best to describe it) is quite wonderful. I had many dishes without knowing what they were!

Got to the airport to discover the 1045 pm flight back to Tehran was delayed until 1 am. Groan. But managed to get transferred onto an 11 pm flight so got back home just before 1 am. Around a 90 minute flight.

Had got up at 6 am, so it was a 19 hour day, but a very enjoyable one. The middle part of the day (which was the highlight) is a separate post.