Palaces, Pishtaqs and Pickles
Iran. A dark, secretive land of political control, oppressed women and hatred of the West, yes? Well, no, actually. It is singlehandedly the most welcoming country I have ever been fortunate enough to visit, and breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful with it.
Once I arrive I immediately realise that the tiny fears remaining in the back of my mind were unfounded. I’d carefully chosen my books so I didn’t have anything too controversial, feminist or political, and alcohol is illegal so I’d even left mouthwash behind. But I needn’t have worried, the staff at the airport were more interested in welcoming us to Iran than searching our bags. That’s not to say you could rock up with a barrel of whisky and an armful of Playboys, but you get my point: the impression of Iran we in the West are given is very different to the reality.
I’ve put on my hejab, or headscarf, that all women must wear in public and we’re out into the cool of morning, travelling towards Tehran itself. We drive along the freeway, past dusty fields and flower sellers at the side of the roads – some with tubs of gladioli or huge pinwheel displays like archery targets and others with just an armful of roses. As we drive into the centre of the city, silk flags flutter in the breeze alongside bridges with pictures of the Ayatollahs and walls bearing murals of poppies and traditional Persian art. The traffic zips along and the streets bustle with people going about their everyday lives; shopping, socialising, being on their way to somewhere else. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe half-anticipating religious police on every corner, but whatever it was it isn’t here. It’s all so very…normal.
Our first stop is breakfast. I can’t remember when or in which timezone I last ate and blissfully the buffet is stuffed with delicious food: cream cheese with fresh flatbreads, slices of blue cheese and salty minted feta, fat green olives, pickles, jammy dates, more flatbreads, slices of watermelon, tiny rosewater syrup pastries and tahini halva, all to the accompaniment of cool mango juice and cup after cup of black coffee.
Then, sufficiently refreshed, we’re away up into the hills of affluent north Tehran with plane tree-lined streets of skyscrapers, glitzy boutiques and huge gated houses. We’re heading for the Sa’adabad museum complex, a huge landscaped woodland park at the foot of the Alborz mountains which was formerly the summer homes of the shahs and their courtiers. Today the palaces are open to the public and the other buildings are museums of everything from fine arts to calligraphy. Our minibus winds through the steep woodland paths past walkers taking in the arriving autumn and diffused sunlight slanting through the pines. One of our first stops is this, the Green Palace, then the museum of the Omdivar brothers; Iranians who spent 10 years travelling the world in the 1960s and who are national heroes.
Our final visit here is the White Palace, the summer home of the penultimate shah, Reza Shah. There was once a statue of him outside but now all that remains are his boots as the rest was destroyed during the Islamic Revolution. Also outside is this bronze of Arash, an archer in Persian mythology who was said to created Persia by firing arrows into the air and their landing places marking the borders.
Inside, the palace is incredible, like wandering into a French salon from the 1920s and 30s, and showing how integrated with the rest of the world Iran once was. There is all the plush European luxury you could dream of: damask walls, velvet swagged curtains, opulent dining halls and reception rooms, and glittering chandeliers with the occasional (real) tiger rug (I always think they look most inconvenient, you’d be forever tripping over its head). Only the central hall seems Persian, with its squared ceiling painted along the inside with traditional hunting scenes. As I goggle at these riches through one of the glass panelled doorways among the (mostly Iranian) tourists, a black-clad little old lady taps my arm. She and a another lady smile shyly before she suddenly hugs me and says “Salam”. I say hello back and feel rather embarrassed, particularly as they look at the iPad in my hand in fascination as if I’m carrying a small spaceship. We bump into each other as we make our way round the palace and I get the same huge smile every time.
Last stop of the morning is a quick squint round the carpet museum. They do know how to knock together a good rug in these parts.
That evening we bundle into taxis and head off to the Artists’ House; a softly lit building nestling in the trees of its gardens, and clearly one the places to see and be seen. Full of people, it’s a gallery of modern art with cafes and restaurants and a shop in which we see someone I’m assured is a very famous Iranian actor. We wander round for a bit looking at the exhibitions, and more people smile and say hello. Being British, this takes some getting used to.
We walk further along the main road, past what was the US embassy and what is now called the US Den of Espionage (after the US orchestrated a coup in 1953, helped out by the UK – funny how these things never get covered in our history lessons, isn’t it?). The high surrounding walls are heavily grafitti’d in a way that clearly expresses what is thought of America, including a large mural of the Statue of Liberty with its face replaced with a skull. That said, we meet Americans on our travels who are treated just as politely and kindly as everyone else.
Then we head off to this, the Azadi Tower in west Tehran, for which we take the bustling subway. It’s so cheap! But here, more than anywhere, the difference in how women are viewed is brought home to me; there are women-only carriages but we travel in the main ones as our guide is male. I tell you what, as a woman you’d need nerves of iron to go in there alone – a woman in what is effectively the men’s space seems to be viewed by some as fair game. I’m with a group but still the open stares are unsettling, as is the man in the orange anorak who follows me off the train and stands right behind me on every escalator back to the surface, using the crowds as an excuse to press himself against me. Back home that sort of thing would be met with a sharp elbow and a few choice phrases but I feel a bit…diminished. Normally I have an expectation of equality and of my perceived respectability not being a contributing factor, but I feel I have a different status here and through my tiredness it rankles. But it turns out that this is the only time on the whole trip that I had any sort of problem whatsoever so I just got off to a wobbly start.
Persian women are pretty feisty so I doubt they’d have tolerated this either, but there’s also an expectation of a woman not putting herself in such a situation in the first place. To mangle a saying, other countries are like the past. They do things differently there.
We cross the road – a feat in itself given the speed and disinclination for stopping of the Tehran traffic – to the base of the tower, surrounded by multi-coloured fountains. Gazing up at the inside of the arch is quite a sight with its azure interior a modern take on the archway of a mosque.
We take the subway back to the district our hotel is in and head to a little restaurant along the way. It doesn’t look much from the outside – just a doorway from the street – but inside is a packed restaurant where little booths surround a fountain. I’m about ready to eat my own head so this is a welcome sight – koresht gheimeh which is a stew of pulses, lamb, aubergine and dried lime, with a cloud of rice and accompanied by bread (it has little dimples in it like a bathmat and is rather chewy) and olives in a sticky pomegranate sauce. Mmmmmm.
Bright and early on day 2 and I’m fuelled by a spectacular breakfast. On top of all the bread, cheese and pickles I could ever eat (and trust me, I can eat pickles until they come out of my ears) there’s dates and pancakes covered with fresh honey cut in great sticky chunks from a combe. First call of the day is the Golestan Palace in the heart of Tehran, also known as the ‘Palace of Flowers’. It’s not hard to see where the name comes from; the ornately tiled buildings surround a square of gardens with long ornamental pools. It’s relatively early and still peaceful – much as I’d like to see more people visit Iran, I can’t pretend that it’s not a relief not to have huge tourist hordes to battle though. There is the quiet sun of bright heat to come with birds singing and swooping through the trees.
As we wander through we take in the open audience halls, (some of which are in the middle of conservation work and full of scaffolding – I’m always pleased to see beautiful buildings being looked after), with their carved marble thrones and mirrored interiors, and reach this, the Khalvat-e Karim Khani or Karim Khani’s Nook. It’s a beautifully tiled and vaulted terrace used by one of the shahs to smoke his water pipe, cooled by a qanat (an underground channel) and enclosed by a low marble wall. He was clearly quite fond of this place as he’s also buried here.
There’s going to be a lot of pictures of tiles, I’m afraid. They really are beautiful, and the colours are so very vivid. Doorways, wall panels, ceilings…you name it, it’s got ornate and brightly coloured patterned tiles on it.
We cross the courtyard into the Talar-e Ayaheh, or Hall of Mirrors. Sadly photography isn’t allowed but I doubt I could have done it justice. It’s the stuff of fairy tales, where huge mirrors line the walls, surrounded by more delicate mirror mosaics which twinkle softly in the chandelier light. The same effect is picked out in patterns on the vaulted ceilings, and the vast room is painted in tones of white, lilac and the very palest blues. It’s like being in a glittering ice palace and it is absolutely jaw dropping in its beauty.
On the edge of the courtyard is a badgir – a wind catcher tower – and we see them all over Iran. They’re an ingenious and early form of air-conditioning, filtering out warm air but capturing the cooler breezes and funnelling them down to rooms at ground level and across a pool of water to cool the air further. When summer temperatures can reach 50 degrees, you can see why they were needed.
The final part of our visit here is the Emerat-e Badgir, part of the wind catcher building. Even more mirrors create an endless mosaic from floor to ceiling, enclosed and darkened, with stained glass windows, soft painted panels of flowers and birds and carved wooden doors. It’s like being in a glittering snug.
Back out into the sunlight and we plunge into the bazaar, past the clutch of black market money changers bunched outside and shouting their prices to the surrounding crowd. The stalls outside sell all manner of dried fruits and nuts; mounds of dates, plums, barberries and apricots are heaped next to shelled walnuts and pistachios. In the vaulted bazaar we pass cooking pots and toys as well as jewellery and crystal of all price tags. A large channel runs down the centre of the bustling paths, into which I stumble several times when trying to avoid the handcarts being rushed back and forth.
We emerge from the winding covered alleys into the busy square of the Imam Khomeini mosque with a fountain at the centre for the ablutions of those who come to pray. Lining the square are many potted trees, many of which with a man trying to be inconspicuous behind it – it’s not the done thing for the men to smoke at the mosque so they lurk behind a tree to do so but their plumes of smoke rather give them away…
We pass more workshops on the way out, this time selling more functional items. I stop for a minute to watch men making keys by sawing grooves into blank rods of metal.
A frieze on a Tehran building. In traditional carvings like this, the different styles of the men’s beards and hats denote their status and position.
The entrance to the Malek library and museum where we’re almost the only people here. We wander around the quiet, softly-lit rooms of traditional calligraphy, paintings and lacquer art, with plenty of lovely curators who are happy to answer our questions.
My favourite exhibit; a cypress tree made of books that were going to be thrown away before an artist rescued them and turned them into a sculpture. Looking carefully, there’s tiny gold birds peeking out from the ‘tree’.
Outside we pass the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, which probably still has my visa paper- work in it. Despite applying months in advance we only got our visas the day before we flew out, and only then because we went to the London consulate and begged. Apparently a British porn-star lied on her visa application form in 2016 (said was a hairdresser…) so she could go to Iran for a nose job. Obtaining a visa was rather protracted for Brits before but, understandably, all this has led to increased scrutiny of applications and the whole thing takes an age. I hope that wretched woman’s nose falls off.
En route to lunch we cross the bustling Toopkaneh Square with food traders who offer us sweets (mmm, free samples – I have a bright yellow one that crumbles away to sugary shards when I chew it), oils and honey. At lunch I try the delicious doogh, a traditional Iranian drink of minted sour yogurt that tastes not unlike liquid halloumi.
The afternoon holds a visit to the archaeology museum for a quick run-down of Persian history (history geek heaven!) and the sun is already beginning to fade as we emerge and join the end of the queue at the National Jewels museum at the imposing Central Bank of Iran. We wait for an age without seeming to move but suddenly we’re ushered through security gates and down carpeted corridors to a vast vault door several feet thick. Given what’s inside I can understand the security – it’s absolutely crammed with all the sparkling diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds you could ever imagine, and more besides. Cabinets of incredible jewelled tiaras, necklaces, scabbards, shisha pipes and horse decorations glint in the low light like the contents of Aladdin’s cave, and in the middle of it all are even greater treasures: the 182 carat Darya-ye Nur diamond, the jewel encrusted Peacock Throne, huge crowns and a golden globe several feet high, where the seas are made from emeralds and the lands of rubies and diamonds. Just…wow.
(Sadly you aren’t allowed cameras in there either. Just touching the case surrounds too heavily is enough to set off the alarms!)
Some of our group have called an early night so the rest of us of set off to find somewhere for dinner (and somewhere that has a menu translated into English…). We just wander for a while, passing tiny shops selling fresh bread and street vendors with barrows of pomegranates, pots and pans and some rather vividly coloured velour slippers. We meet one of the few police we see in our entire trip when he kindly helps us cross the road.
With my meal I have fresh lemonade which is served in a lab flask. It seems hipsterism is now somewhat globally universal. I have the first of many kebabs – if it can be skewered and grilled, it will be.
I stop at a street kiosk on the way back to the hotel to buy some biscuits and I still haven’t grasped the currency. The official currency is rial but tomans are more commonly used, with 10 rials to a toman. So far so good, but Iranian notes are in high denominations (100,000 rial notes, about £2, are probably the most common ) so the last four digits are knocked off the toman sum to shorten the whole thing. So, 100,000 rials is 10,000 toman but often referred to as 1. When your Farsi is limited and you don’t want to cause offence or embarrassment because you’re not quite sure whether the ‘1’ in question is one toman, one rial, or one thousand (of either), it’s just easier to hand over the equivalent of £10 for one packet of Iranian digestives and hope you’re not ripped off. Of course, I’m not but I still feel a bit of an idiot.
Day 3 and on the road to Isfahan by 8am, past fields still shrouded in the early morning mists, which is added to by the water haze from irrigation fountains. As we leave the city, the landscape opens out into desert and the road stretches to the horizon in front of us. It’s like one long rumble strip, which is not terribly comfortable when the early start has necessitated several large cups of coffee, together with several glasses of that sugary orange juice/squash hybrid beloved of hotels around the world. (On a similar subject, why can hotels not have proper pillows rather than those foam horrors? I had one that was absolutely solid and one that was all lumps so you had to arrange your head between them, like Granville burrowing into Nurse Gladys Emmanuel’s bosom in Open All Hours.)
I’m grateful for a pit stop at a service station, which is much nicer than any Welcome Break. Some other travellers have set out their rugs and shisha pipes in the car park and chat away while their children doze in the shade, and inside there are huge wooden bed-style tables, draped in woven fabrics on which to lounge.
We’re spending part of the day at Kashan, where we first stop here, at the Bagh-e Fin, or Fin Gardens.
Designed for one of the shahs, the gardens are now a Unesco World Heritage Site and deemed to be the very epitome of a Persian garden with its division into four quarters (sky, earth, water and plants) designed to represent Paradise. And a paradise it is indeed – the high-walled gardens are a heaven of cool breezes, fountains and fish-filled turquoise pools with cypress and orange trees amongst the lushness. We visit this, the shah’s pavillion, then wind through the hammam with its maze of rooms: some are tiny and barely more than a tiled cupboard, while others would seat dozens on their stone ledges.
Outside the gardens is a rose water distillery – Kashan is so famous for its roses that it has an entire festival dedicated to them every May. There are bottles of all sizes stacked to the ceiling, alongside two enormous coppers and other wares of dried rose flowers and honey. The blissful but rather overpowering scent fills the shop and spills out to the street beyond.
Khan-e Boroujerdi, one of Kashan’s famous historical houses. This one was built in 1857 for the daughter of a wealthy carpet merchant, whose father stipulated that she must live in a house as beautiful as his own after her marriage. The decorated buildings surround a stucco-carved courtyard and cool stone passageways lead to room after room – some are stained-glass lit chambers, others are frescoed rooms open to the skies and yet more are undercrofts. Narrow and steep winding steps take me further up until I reach the roof-top stables with their bare mud/straw construction showing what lies beneath the mirrors and painted panels in room walls below. But how did they get the horses up here? Or down again?
Doorways and arches open outwards but there’s no rails – to take this picture I’m sitting on the edge of one of the upper ledges. I marvel at what it must have been like to live in such opulence but maybe it was something of a gilded cage. Many women lived in purdah, or seclusion, as shown by the vast wooden front door which has two knockers on it, each designed to make a different sound. Men used one and women the other meaning that the female inhabitants knew whether or not they could open the door as they could not be seen by an unrelated male.
Next door is a tiny mosque and, like many here, it offers a free tour for visitors. If you think wearing a hejab is tricky, the required chador (which literally means ‘tent’ in Farsi) is even harder. A sheet-like covering, it covers all of me except my face and has to be held from the inside which renders your arms rather useless.
The Imam shows us round, talking through the life of the mosque and its contents, and he’s absolutely desperate to point out that nothing they teach or worship has anything to do with Isis. Not that I imagine anyone who goes to somewhere like Iran wouldn’t know this but the thought’s there anyway. It also goes to show that, as we have misconceptions of Iran, maybe they have them of foreigners too; that we don’t understand Islam and lump all Muslims in with terrorists. Mind, given some of the British media, they’d be forgiven for thinking that…
After a brisk rummage around a jewellery shop on the way (hello, new turquoise pendant!) we’re at another mosque, this time the Masjed-e-Agha Borzog. In the late afternoon sun we step down into the sunken courtyard with its blue pool, surrounded by stone arcades. A cat lazes in the cool of one of the many stairwells; despite the lengthening shadows it’s still relentlessly hot. The call to prayer drifts on the air, as does the rose oil a shopkeeper dotted on my hand in an effort to persuade me to buy his wares.
These ceilings are stunning but it takes a lot of lying on the floor to get pictures of them. This is the inside of the main doorway and, like most, it’s emblazoned with a depiction of the sun. Others are ornately honeycombed where it’s said that the points of these are designed to represent constellations.
After looking round the rest of the mosque we leave Kashan’s quiet winding streets and continue to the city of Isfahan, driving on through the desert and the gathering dusk. Before the light fades I can see occasional settlements but mostly the flat landscape is barren save for runnelled hills, showing that this was once a river bed or sea but all that’s left now is an arid landscape of desert grass and emptiness. I fall asleep leaning against the window but am rudely awakened when a particularly enthusiastic pothole smacks my forehead against the glass.
We stop at a police check point but only for formalities as we cross from one province to another. As night falls the mountains turn to silhouettes then fade into the dark, and the remoteness makes me think what a lonely journey travelling the Silk Road would have been. This trading route wound from China to the Mediterranean from 120 BC to the 1450s and took three months to plod with caravans of camels not only carrying precious cargoes of spices, ivory, gold and, obviously, silks but allowing the travel of ideas and culture. You’d need to make it to the next caravanserai, or inn, on the route before nightfall and it must have been a harsh, even bleak journey at times.
Room service, anyone? Nothing says “romantic dinner” more than not one, or two, but three kebabs.
We’ve made it to Isfahan and, while my room isn’t quite as luxurious as my last (our rooms had to be hastily rebooked at the last minute when we actually got our visas), it’s certainly the only one I’ve ever had with a green arrow on the ceiling to show me the direction of Mecca.
We have dinner at the 300-year-old Abbasi hotel, a former caravanserai and now the last word in opulence. We eat in the terraced gardens surrounded by orange trees and fountains and stuff ourselves on filled vine leaves, dumplings and tahchin; a cake of saffron and yogurt rice layered with chicken and barberries, followed by rosewater and tahini sweets.
We walk to Naqsh-e Jahan Square after dinner to see the beautifully lit Shah mosque. We’ll be back for a proper visit tomorrow but already I can see why the softly lit square is Isfahan’s biggest attraction: a vast piazza of fountained gardens is surrounded by mosques, palaces and the buildings of the bazaar. Another Unesco World Heritage Site; it’s the second biggest square in the world and certainly one of the most stunning. Despite the lateness it’s still bustling with people.
And here we are, back in the light of day and the square is even better in the sunshine. Built in 1602 when Isfahan took its turn as the ever-shifting capital of Persia, this was the jewel in the city’s crown. Little has changed in the intervening years; you can still see the goalposts in the central gardens where polo was played 400 years ago and a spectacular building sits in the centre of each side – the Lotfolla and Shah mosques, the Ali Qapu palace, and the Qeysarieh Portal marking the entrance to the sprawling Bozorg bazaar. Little horse carts jingle past in the soft morning sun. We skirt along the edge of the landscaped gardens and, passing this, the Lotfollah mosque, we head first to the mosque we saw last night: the Masjed-e Shah.
We enter through vast wooden doors (still riddled with bullet holes from a previous king’s attempt to assassinate the parliament hiding inside) and towering archway leading from the bustle of the square to the calm within. The sheer level of decoration is hard to comprehend, especially the muqarnas (the highly decorated honeycombed stalactites that fill the ceiling of the iwan or entrance hall) and the pishtaqs, whose flat faces of the gateways are filled with geometric patterns and calligraphy.
One immense blue tiled and arched cloister leads into another, through courtyards and indoor spaces and, in the prayer halls, the sun slants through high windows on the air’s dust. It feels beautifully peaceful and still.
Back outside, the Imam of this mosque offers a quick talk about Islam too. He chats about all sorts of things, including the differences (and similarities) between Sunni and Shi’a Islam. His main message? It doesn’t matter which you are because, “…it’s OK to be different.” The world could do with a bit more of that thinking.
Afterwards we have a quick look round the museum and its history of Persian politics. It’s amazing how the British didn’t manage to colonise Persia but we still interfered and helped ourselves to their oil. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find a country to visit where I don’t feel ashamed of Britain’s past behaviour.
The neighbouring Lotfollah mosque. Designed as a private mosque for the women of the harem, there are narrow brick corridors which open straight into the main hall. The interior colours fade from yellows at ground level to blues higher up to represent the earth and sky. The bright sun is filtered by the few high, latticed windows at the very edge of the dome into the hall below with its doorways, alcoves and hushed echoes.
Aha, pitstop! We stop at a cafe in a tiny shaded square down a passageway, where tables are made from balancing a tray on one of the stools we’re not perched on. A balcony runs around with more cafes and restaurants above and the shops around us sell all manner of trinkets. Hammering from workshops down further passageways intermingles with the sound of a man crouched by the central pond of the square breaking up chunks of ice with a pick for our drinks. I have Persian coffee and fresh pomegranate juice.
We walk further on, through a park filled with picknicing school children. One of our party has bottles of blowing bubbles which she gives as gifts to a group of small girls, They’re thrilled with them and rush to show their teacher, who invites us to join them for tea on their picnic rugs. We’re the subject of much staring as we make our way onwards, but in a nice way. I guess we just look different.
Having worked up an appetite after our stroll we head back to the shaded square where one of the restaurants on the balcony is our lunch stop. We recline (somewhat uncomfortably) on the blanketed banquettes. More kebab and a huge jug of durgh!
After lunch we have an entire afternoon free to wander the bazaar. The square is edged by colonnades of shops but the rabbit warren of tiny stores in vaulted passages stretches much further into the surrounding streets and parts are reported to be over a thousand years old. I wander for hours, occasionally lost, often coming back to a spot I recognise before turning off into a bit I haven’t explored yet. I pass heaps of copper pots and pans being made on site by men hunched over little hammers, dried fruits stacked in coloured bowls, clothes, scarves and shawls, strings of beads, sweets, lacquerwork boxes of all sizes and colours, filigree silver, cranberry coloured glass decorated with gold and – best of all – clutches of spice stalls with their scents of turmeric, limes and sack upon sack of dried herbs drifting down the hallways.
There’s a lot of ‘hello’s from passers-by and stallholders, a lot of asking where I’m from and even more welcomes to Iran and Isfahan, even from children. One man asks if he might walk with me for a while to practise his English – I don’t mind one bit and we amble along the shops on the edge of the square for a bit, chatting politely to the backdrop of snake charmer-like Iranian pipe music drifting in from the gardens.
We have a pre-dinner foray to a local shop for snacks that evening and return with huge sticky pastries, cans of strawberry juice and lemon beers. Dinner itself is at a restored bath house with vaulted ceilings and fountains tinkling as we eat, and where I have gheyme rizeh; lamb cooked with spiced gram flour and unripened grapes. Then we head to this, the vividly lit Si-o-se Pol, or Bridge of 33 Spans, crossing the Zeyanderud river. Except that the river isn’t here; water shortages mean you can walk along the dried riverbed alongside the bridge. Many of the high alcoves are full of people sitting, chatting and generally just hanging-out, and more sit on the bridge footings smoking shisha, playing music and even fire-poi made of burning coals in baskets dangling from ropes.
Day 5. A little out of Isfahan we walk down backstreets, through quiet squares and past tiny pastry shops with exquisite wares in their windows to the Vank cathedral (a rather unfortunate name given that the Iranian pronunciation of ‘v’ is more of a ‘w’…) in the Armenian quarter. Christian Armenians came to Isfahan in the 17th century as prized merchants, craftsmen and artists so their religious difference was tolerated, albeit not in the centre of Isfahan itself. The cathedral they built looks rather plain from the outside but the interior is so lushly decorated with vivid jewel colours, gold and gilt it takes you by surprise as you step into the hushed and domed sanctum. There’s a curious mix of styles; Islamic tiles mix with frescoes of scenes from the Bible and Torah, and it’s all topped off with a lavish gold ceiling.
Outside is a memorial to the 1915 Armenian genocide, which apparently the British Government – unlike almost all others – doesn’t recognise.
The Jameh mosque – one of the oldest mosques in Iran – where we start off in huge halls whose interiors are decorated not with tiles but geometric brickwork and where dome after dome dimples the ceiling above us. As we wander on it’s like a journey though a history of mosque architecture: from bricks to stucco to tiles, then down into the snug winter prayer rooms where low ceilinged and carpeted undercrofts are lit by slabs of alabaster set into the ceilings to provide light while protecting from the elements.
Brickmakers’ marks. The marks were counted and the brickmakers paid accordingly.
Ayatollah Khamanei, the current Supreme Leader. Images of him and Ayatollah Khomeini (the first Supreme Leader) are everywhere. One of the things that surprised me was learning more about the Islamic Revolution – in the West it’s presented to us as oppression of the Iranian people enforced by an extremist religious regime but, for many, it’s really not viewed like that at all. The previous ruler – the last Shah – was hugely unpopular for his profligacy and efforts to ‘modernise’ Iran by enforced secularisation and westernisation. One such effort was banning women’s headscarves, which had the effect of some women not leaving their houses for the six – SIX – years the ban was in place because they feared arrest with the covering but felt inappropriately dressed without.
Khomeini was the figurehead of the revolution and held in almost saint-like reverence by some. While there’s plenty of people who didn’t expect an Islamic Republic to be the outcome of the shah’s deposing, and who campaign for liberalisation and more free choice, there’s a lot of conservative Iranians who are happy with things the way they are.
Back into the bazaar, which reaches all the way from yesterday’s Naqsh-e Jahan square more than a mile away. There are more stalls of sweets and herbs, and spice mixes where the different layers are displayed in open-sided containers with layers like geological strata. Other stalls sell strings of yellow dates, bags of coconut shards, nigella-seed flecked bread and rings of dried figs.
We head off to buy boxes of the local delicacy of gaz; nougat sweets studded with pistachios. We sample it extensively before purchase, obviously.
A large part of the afternoon is spent at Kakh-e-Chehel Sotun, the last surviving royal palace . Built as a pleasure palace, the wooden canopied hall is supported by vast columns stretching up to the underside lined with mosaics of stars and suns. This view from the palace steps shows the entrance pavilion and pooled gardens that surround the palace with a halo of peace from the bustling traffic beyond.
Into the cool shade of the Throne Room with its walls of these frescos and friezes showing sumptuous court life and great battles, and ceilings of lush, gilded colours. Through a side door is are tiny ante-rooms where soft delicate paintwork of flowers and birds has been unearthed from a later layer of plaster; its subtlety in contrast with the extravagant grandeur of the main hall.
Before the sun sets we head back to the Naqsh-e Jahan bazaar for ice-cream, and pile into a tiny shop already stuffed with school children on their way home. I have very creamy and utterly delicious mango and strawberry ice-creams. We then climb all the many many stone steps of a steep spiral staircase to the top of the Ali Qapu palace, after which all that ice-cream is sitting rather heavily, I can tell you. We stop at the music room on the way up, where the shapes of instruments have been hollowed into the walls to give better acoustics, then gratefully spill out onto the terrace where a cool breeze plays across. It was worth it all for the view; a tumble of cream buildings of all sizes and shapes spreads across the town to meet the distant hills, behind which the sun is sinking.
After dinner we walk across the Khaju bridge where hordes of people have squeezed themselves into the arches of its pillars. They’re bundled up against the evening chill; couples, friends and families, all to listen to the groups of men singing haunting traditional songs and poetry about love and loss.
One of the many alms boxes. One of the central tenets of Islam is charitable giving and these donation boxes are on every street (and are also a way of putting to a good use coins which you won’t be able to change back at the airport). “Walls of Kindness” also exist, where donated clothes and food are left on designated walls for the homeless to help themselves to.
Day 6 and we’re leaving Isfahan for Yazd with a stop here at Na’in. While it’s still (relatively) cool we visit the town’s main mosque, with its central courtyard surrounded by barley twist columns and labyrinth of underground rooms.
Next to it is a traditional house with a shaded sunken courtyard. The surrounding alcoved rooms are full of looms and pottery; these were the area’s traditional crafts but have now largely disappeared. This one house remains as a museum and fabrics of bright colours – magentas, golds and mints – or woven from camel hair hang as examples.
Outside, we have coffee and dates under the shade of the trees. It’s astoundingly quiet with hardly any sound from the passing traffic or surrounding lanes of mudbrick houses. Almost all you can hear is the birds.
After a lunch of fesenjan (a stew of lamb made with walnuts and pomegranate), rice cooked with dill and broad beans, and tahdig (the crispy layer from the bottom of the rice pan, which is considered ‘the best bit’ and not unlike a rice-based crackling), we’ve arrived in Yazd and, more specifically, at the Zoroastrian Fire Temple of Ateshkadeh.
The winged figure of a guardian spirit symbolising Zoroastrianism.
The religion of Zoroastrianism pre-dates Islam and centres around the worship of fire as a representation of their god, Ahura Mazda. In the quiet centre room of the temple burns a sacred eternal flame behind a screen (only Zoroastrians can go near it) which is said to have been burning continually since AD470.
Where the line between town and desert begins to blur are the Towers of Silence. The desert feels pretty lonely at the best of times, but these two buildings add an eeriness as they were a site for Zoroastrians to leave their dead. It was against their beliefs to pollute the earth with a body so they were brought instead to these hilltop open air towers, where the vultures did their thing and the leftover bones were put into central pits. The pits – and the odd bone – are still there.
Having climbed the steep path to the tower I wouldn’t fancy lugging a body up there. It was hard enough lugging myself.
A genuine – and rather cheesed-off looking – Persian cat.
Day 7 already! Another day, another stunning mosque… This time it’s the grand communal mosque of Yazd, where we are the subject of much amusement for a group of small boys who follow us around. We quietly file past a woman praying at the mihrab; the highly decorated niche that shows the direction of Mecca.
Across the courtyard, past a stained-glass lit prayer room, is one of the wells and I start down the steep fairy-light lit steps for a look. It’s only as I near the bottom that I see the well through the gloom and realise that there’s absolutely nothing stopping me ending up in it if I fall which, bearing in mind that the steps seem to have been designed for giants, is not entirely unlikely. I retrace my steps holding rather tightly to the walls.
Outside the mosque we pass huge cauldrons of food being cooked up for communal meals, and pass into the tiny mud-brick streets. We get lost in the winding lanes as we dodge motorbikes shattering the peace and wander past ornate but faded doors, past which we occasionally catch a glimpse of the courtyards beyond. We finally track down the rest of our party in a vast carpet shop where rolls of rugs are stacked from floor to ceiling. In the corner is a narrow staircase leading out onto the roof where, shading my eyes from now-baking sun, I can look out across the skyline of minarets and mountains.
Alexander’s Prison, said to been built by Alexander the Great and used as a dungeon but today it’s a rather peaceful courtyard where the rooms house shops selling ceramics and textiles rather than anything more untoward.
We set out for Shiraz, stopping briefly for bananas and watermelon as we leave Yazd behind. We drive through the base of the mountains, crags against the dusty sky. A few buildings dot the landscape – here a lonely sand-brick house, there a tiny blue and white building the size and shape of a Western caravan perched on a rock at a fork in the road. Maybe a rural mosque with its gold dome glittering in the midday sun, or a dumpy derelict tower like a chess rook. Dirt tracks stretch away and occasional dust clouds show a vehicle leaving or joining the freeway – no junctions here!
We break our journey to look at a stepped, domed ice house, once used to store winter ice for the hotter months. Crossing a road of pines and weeping willows, we peer inside to a deep pit and the ghosts of long worn away steps used by those packing ice into the sand.
On an isolated and windswept stretch of road at Pasargadae is the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the first Persian empire. Sadly it’s long since been looted and the surrounding buildings destroyed so all that’s left is ruins, but its sense of abandoned grandeur remains.
Day 8 and almost the very highlight of our trip – the Nasir ol Molk, better known as the Pink Mosque, so called because, unlike most other mosques, it uses pink as one of the tile colours. Peonies and roses abound, so detailed and lifelike that you can almost smell them.
The highlight of the highlight: the Winter Prayer room. One wall is made up entirely of stained glass windows so the morning sunlight floods the whole room in jewel colours. It almost feels like the colour fills the very air.
We walk a little further on and reach Naranjestan Qavam pavilion, a home built in the 13th century for a family of (extremely, I presume) wealthy merchants. We pass groves of orange and date trees edged with marigolds and Granny Pop Out of Beds (bindweed, but it’s what my grandmother used to call it as you can squeeze the flowers out of their pods) and skirt round the temptingly-cool looking pond. The vast central reception area, with its hundreds of mirrors of all sizes, glitters in the dancing light reflected from the water.
Inside, some rooms are panelled in delicate shades, and others are glittering mirror caverns of silver highlighted with deep reds, golds, blues and greens. Walnut doors are beautiful panels of marquetry showing birds and flowers picked out in mother of pearl and yet more gold.
Argh-e Karim Khan or the Castle of Karim Khan. Built to resemble a fortress it has a huge tower in each corner. The one here has developed something of an unfortunate lean, having subsided into the underground bath house below.
We file through the softly lit hammam, with its enormous arched ceilinged marble baths, pits for coal fires and tiny interconnecting rooms, all beautifully decorated with intricate carvings in every arch, niche and corner.
The central courtyard is filled with flowers and orchards of lime trees, whose fruit drops onto the paths, occasionally breaking open and leaving the scent of limes on the warm air. Across these gardens are the original living quarters, once delicately and exquisitely decorated in all manner of colours and designs. The building’s subsequent use as a prison saw horrendous damage being done, with the decor either plastered over or ripped away entirely by the inmates. Thankfully, what’s left is being salvaged and put back on display – ‘then’ and ‘now’ pictures show just how much restoration work has been needed. The interior walls of this reception hall show the original decoration still being uncovered.
A late lunch of much Iranian deliciousness, including heaps of fresh warm bread, then…mmm, pudding. A sweet custard sprinkled with nutmeg, rosewater and cardamom paste and date ‘lollipops’ pressed with sesame seeds.
The shadows are already beginning to lengthen as we reach the tomb of Sa’adi, a 13th century poet. Poetry is taken incredibly seriously in Iran and poets like Sa’adi and Hafez are national heroes. Fittingly, given that he wrote extensively about gardens and roses, flowers fill the grounds around the central building in carefully tended beds or tumbling from pots and all flanked by deep green cypress trees.
Inside the mausoleum is the central chamber, a vast lamp like a thurible hanging from the high domed ceiling. In each corner is an alcove with one of Sa’adi’s poems inscribed and his carved marble tomb sits in the middle of the floor, nowadays encased in glass to stop the stone being worn away by so many people paying their respects. And many people there are; families, couples and school trips, many taking pictures (and the inevitable selfie), all in an atmosphere of happy reverence.
The turquoise pillared adjoining hall opens onto more gardens where paths lead past palms and pines wreathed with ivy, in and out of which chattering birds swarm, and down to a fish pond.
For more Iranian poets we stop next at the tomb of Hafez; Iran’s most famous and revered poet, renowned for his mysticism as much as his poetry. His major work, the Divan of Hafez, is found in most Persian homes and often used for fortune telling – open the book at any page and the sage sayings, many of which are still in use as proverbs, will predict your future.
The bougainvillea-surrounded pavilion, with its dome in the shape of a dervish’s hat, was constructed over Hafez’s tomb and, like Sa’adi’s, is a site of pilgrimage. The surrounding gardens, entered through a columned stone arcade, are full of chatter, laughter, song, children playing, poetry being read aloud or just those standing quietly to touch the alabaster tombstone. As the last of the sunlight fades, a full moon rises mistily over the mountains.
I’m utterly enthralled by how respected art and poetry are in Iran, if only we had more of that back home. I’m all for poets rather than pop stars.
Falooda, a traditional Iranian dessert. It’s terribly sweet, like hundreds-and-thousands mixed with liquid icing. I manage a few spoonfuls before I can feel my blood sugar getting to dangerous levels.
To complete today’s pilgrimage theme, our last stop of the day is Aramgah-e Shah-e Cheragh – the shrine of the King of the Light – built as a monument to descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the holiest sites in Iran. We’re given chadors to wear (they’re very anonymising – I’ve seen a picture of all of us together in our chadors and I have no idea which one is me) before we enter the first of two enormous squares. Not only is photography only allowed in certain areas but I’m using an old camera (helpfully, my iPhone conked out just before this trip) and a combination of the artificial lights and it being dark meant that few of my pictures came out terribly well here.
We pass a huge prayer hall, with prayer time just ending and people spilling down the steps into the squares where there is much socialising. The columns of the hall are shrouded in black fabric – our trip overlaps the 40 day Mourning of Muharram to commemorate Imam Hossein, grandson of Muhammad, and black flags and hangings decorate every mosque and holy site as well as streets and public buildings.
We have an official government guide here, a rather serious young man but one who is clearly passionate about buildings, their meanings and their architecture. As we wander further though archways and past mirrored prayer halls, we talk about London’s architecture and he asks me to remember him to St Paul’s cathedral next time I see it (if you’re reading this, I always do). He talks about the five colours of mosques – blue, green, yellow, turquoise and pink – and their meanings, the the significance of the carvings and decorations; and the construction of domes. Architecture + history + someone who’s as fascinated by it as I am = a very happy me.
Lemon and mint granita, the sharpness of which is just the thing after the falooda. For dinner I have kashk-e bademjan; a dish of roasted aubergines with walnuts, mint and yogurt-like whey, and the dish opposite me is dizi; a soup stew of many dishes where the broth is mopped up with bread leaving a stew of chickpeas, potatoes, tomatoes and mutton to be eaten alongside pickles and a basket of fresh herbs.
Day 9 and two older ladies join us for breakfast to chat to us, asking us where we’re from and what we think of Iran. I inflict my Farsi efforts on them, including some emergency leafing though the phrasebook. It does make for quick learning.
After breakfast we’re heading to the ancient site of Persepolis, which I have been hugely looking forward to. It was the ceremonial heart of the first Persian empire but today only ruins remain after it was burned to the ground by Alexander the Great as revenge in 330BC.
We turn off the main road onto a pine-lined drive, past camels and fruit sellers and fields being irrigated with vast jets of water – it’s still early but the temperature is already soaring. We enter the site through the remains of the Gate of All Nations; originally the grand entrance but the lumasi guards (winged protective deities with the bodies of bulls and human heads) have since had their faces smashed off as a sign of defeat. Ornate masonry of carved griffins litters the ground, presumably where it fell, and it seems sad to think of such strength and solidity being reduced to little more than rubble.
Even with the best efforts of the restorers, who’ve re-erected columns, doorways and walls wherever they can, it’s still hard to get a sense of what the city of Persepolis would have looked like, being as it is a site of ruins open to the air. Rather brilliantly, however, the authorities have used virtual reality headsets to recreate the original interiors. Stand by one of the markers, put on the headset and suddenly you are whisked from a field of stumps in the sun’s glare into a deeply coloured hall and the very griffin carvings that were lying in the sand are back in their original places at the top of soaring columns. The lumasi’s restored faces stare out at you, guarding the high gold doors next to sentries who look on impassively. It is absolutely breath-taking.
One of the most impressive, and preserved, treasures is the vast Apadana staircase, whose carvings show the King of Persia receiving an enormous procession of gift-bearers from every nation forming the empire. Each envoy is identifiable by their intricately carved regional dress – the carving is so delicate that you can even see fingernails and shoelaces – from Armenians to Babylonians, Syrians to Indians, all bringing gifts of jewellery, camels and ivory. One party appeared to have brought a hippopotamus, which must have been a bit of a surprise.
Past the doorways of palaces and through the stumps of columned halls, some of which still bear traces of the fire that destroyed them, we start up the steep hill to the necropolis where tombs of Persian kings were hewn into the rock face. We stump along narrow stone and sand paths in the now-blistering sun but it’s worth it for the view. Only up here do you realise the scale and sheer enormity of what was one of the grandest palaces in the world, even if its grandeur couldn’t prevent its merciless end.
Back down the hill I’m grateful for a large, ice cold pomegranate juice in the shade. My Farsi must be getting better as I order it successfully without accidentally ordering a hundred of them or the shopkeeper taking pity on me in English.
More tombs, this time the vast carved ones of Kings Darius I, Xerexes, Ataxerxes and Darius II at Naqsh-e Rustam. The enormous stone reliefs around them show imperial conquests and royal ceremonies and the site is edged by an ancient fire temple. Their sealed doors were broken open when tombs were plundered, somewhat inevitably, by Alexander the Great. Perhaps not quite so Great if you want anything to stay how and where you left it.
After a lunch at a restaurant where our table was in a little pavilion in the middle of a pond with fountains criss-crossing either side (complete with functional wifi, which is something of a rarity outside of a hotel and even then not a guarantee) we are out of the desert, through pine and cypress studded hills and back into the streets of Shiraz. The effort that’s gone into town landscaping is impressive; sculptures nestle at the base of a hill which has many steps winding to the top for walkers, walls are painted with sunflowers and more Persian art and even roundabouts are laid out like mini parks. Reams of flags flutter in the breeze.
The afternoon is spent at the Vakil bazaar which is crammed with all that is glittering and scented. The central halls are tiled and vaulted but I wander further out, where the streets have been roofed with corrugated metal to add themselves to the original 18th century layout. Cheek by jowl are shops selling fabrics of every hue – some sell the jolting shades of neon alongside the luridly sequinned, others have only varying patterns of black – copper pots, clothes, jewellery, ceramics and herbs. Others sell ice-cream, sweets and tea.
I go further on, trying to avoid the porters whose handcarts rattle past with sacks of herbs or precariously heaped bundles of cloth. I find myself in a tiny square with an art and craft collective, where many of the things for sale are being made or decorated on site by the artists.
I walk back through a fug of herbs and spices and along a stone hall of carpet sellers sitting in their doorways smoking and chatting, to sit in a fountained courtyard while I wait for the others. On the way I pass an exasperated French guide explaining Iranian currency to her charges in a tone of voice that suggests this isn’t the first attempt. Clearly I wasn’t the only one to be flummoxed.
The statue of Khwaju Kermani, a famous Iranian poet and mystic, at the Qur’an Gate. So called because handwritten qur’ans were originally stored in the gatehouse, and passing under the gate was said to bring blessings for your journey.
Before dinner I have coffee in the fairy-light hung courtyard of the hotel, which comes with delicious, if sticky, sweets.
We have a rare late start the following morning (we’ve absolutely packed it in on this trip) so I have a lie in. I’m one of the last to have breakfast it seems, there was just me and another table of men chatting over their coffee. I rather assumed the waiter would be wanting to finish up but, as I’m resigning myself to the remaining rather chewy bathmat-bread, he slides a basket of freshly cooked and bubbled flat bread in front of me with a smile. Iranian hospitality and kindness to travellers is a thing to behold.
Before we leave the hotel have offered to lay on tea for us – when we arrived some of our rooms initially had a few problems (all quickly rectified) and they want to apologise. And this was the rather fabulous cake they’d had made for us! It was utterly delicious; a nutty, cream-filled sponge with icing so light it was almost whipped. A lovely farewell to Shiraz.
We fly back to Tehran and we are the subject of much staring at Shiraz airport from the predominantly male travellers. On landing, I get into conversation at the baggage carousel with a man from Qom who tells me about his home town and urges me to visit it.
We battle our way through the Tehran rush hour before another bazaar, this time for us all to stock up on dates and cooking ingredients before we go home. We stop at one shop where if you can dry it, they sell it. There are these beautiful roses, but also every variety of nut and fruit with plenty of samples to try (mmm, peaches and strawberries). I investigate the surrounding shops with their hessian sacks of dried flower mixes. I smell a few then, getting a bit confident, deeply inhale the scent from a beautifully coloured mix. I have no idea what’s in it but it’s so strong I nearly end up flat out on the cobbles.
In the middle of the bazaar is another mosque where, unlike most, we’re allowed to enter the women’s section. It’s a very social space; some are praying but others sit around the edges at the back, chatting. To judge by the hilarity my efforts to put on a chador causes, I still haven’t got the hang of it.
We pass back out through the bazaar, through tiny lanes of stalls selling pickles and olives of every sort and vast mounds of fruit and vegetables, from teeny tiny figs and vast black avocados to ribs of celery the length of my arm. Those who don’t have stalls sell spinach bunches or cobs of corn out of crates propped up on the pavement outside.
A suburb of north Tehran, Darband is the base of a hiking trail into the mountains and the very start of it is a hillside network of cafes, restaurants, food stalls and places to smoke a shisha pipe, all lit with coloured lamps and strings of lights. As we walk, the cobbles wind through high walls, narrowing and steepening, and the brook running alongside occasionally babbles across our path (meaning wet feet if you aren’t careful!). Brightly lit buildings are set into the hillsides high above us with banks of lush flowers and occasional waterfalls coloured by the lights. The effect is rather magical.
An extensive last night dinner is here, the Koohpaya restaurant. Amongst the balconies of geraniums and twinkling lights around us I have more kashk-e badamjan (fast becoming an obsession), fat shrimps, fresh sherbety lemonade and the inevitable pickles. I’m glad I don’t have pudding though as afterwards we have the honour of our guide taking us to meet his family, where we have lots of tea, sweets, dates and fruit. Mahdi, our guide, was absolutely wonderful – he looked after us, made sure no-one got irretrivably lost, answered our endless questions and even accompanied one of our party to hospital when they were taken ill. We couldn’t have asked for a better guide.
To walk all this off, our very last stop of the trip is the Tabi’at bridge and surrounding parks with their woodland paths, sculptures and communal chess games. From the bridge we stop take in the stunning nighttime skyline of Tehran.
Our little band of travellers.
Just to round the trip off marvellously I’m upgraded on the way home (thank you BA!). Before I arrived I thought I’d feel a little pang of relief to have made it through the trip unscathed (after all, the guide book did have a section entitled “What to do if you are arrested”) but actually I feel bereft to be leaving. After all, I’ve seen so much but so little – I’ve heard tell of the beautiful Persian Gulf island of Kish in the south, the busy sprawl of Tabriz, the holy city of Qom, the possibility of skiing in Shemshak, the tantalising-sounding Castles of the Assassins in Qazvin… I’ve hardly left before I long to go back.