Category: Authentic Travel in Iran
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Ants in the World’s Most Stunning Graveyard
The scale at Naqsh-e Rustam is so huge, the tourists below appear like tiny ants.I wasn’t prepared for the shocking views at Naqsh-e Rustam and I’m glad I wasn’t. I stood there, mouth open and oblivious to our tour’s guide’s explanations, starring at what must be the world’s most stunning graveyard. Persian kings were buried over many centuries, in tombs carved into the side of the rocky mountain and decorated with giant…
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Melancholy at Persepolis
Are we evolving or devolving one wonders after seeing Persepolis“Now you know why Iranians are so proud,” my wife told me after I visited Persepolis today. “This history is why they think they have everything and no one else – the Americans, the Europeans, no one else – compares to them.” I’m tempted to deduce just the opposite, that contemporary Iranians – who don’t…
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Vakil Historical Public Bath
Vakil Bath is an old public bath turned into a museum in Shiraz, an exquisitely restored window into a bygone era when public baths were more like social clubs for business and politics.
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The Last Medicine Man
Mostafa Rahemi, 80, is an attari (AT-tawry, traditional medicine man who heals using herbs and plant extracts) and a former bodybuilder. His store, filled with yellowing historic photos, is the only one left in an old alley in the ancient Shiraz neighborhood of Ghashoo-Ghashe, near Shah Sheragh Shrine. Rahemi (RAW-hemy) says: “Seven-hundred years ago, back…
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Free Airline Food – Not a Mirage in Iran
Flying in Iran is relatively inexpensive. But the best part is the free hot meals.Iranian airlines feed all passengers with piping meals, service that is shocking to visiting tourists.
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Hate and Love Spew Out in Articles about Iran Travel
Readers’ comments on online articles about travel to Iran wildly fluctuate between praise and condemnation and I’m still getting used to seeing the sometimes jolting disparity. Case example: the 191 comments left on The Guardian’s Iran Holiday Guide in the 24 hours since publication. The article by former Londoner Haleh Anvari (who also authored the brilliant…
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Travel in Iran carries the risk of going to jail – WRONG!
It’s far deadlier and not for what you thinkThe biggest risk of travel in Iran is not going to jail (or from getting shot or ripped off, as is the case in the streets of Europe and America). Here the risk is getting your gourd smashed in a traffic accident! Or at least think you’re out of your mind after witnessing what Iranian drivers are capable of.…
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Final thoughts on the road trip through northwest Iran
I’ve learned so much more about this complex landThe biggest risk of travel in Iran is not going to jail (or from getting shot or ripped off, as is the case in the streets of Europe and America). Here the risk is getting your gourd smashed in a traffic accident! Or at least think you’re out of your mind after witnessing what Iranian drivers are capable of.…
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Trek to Babak Castle
A Visit to the Home of an Iranian Anti-Arab HeroThe vista from Babak Castle – the home of the 9th-century hero who resisted the hated Arab rulers of Iran – is mind-mindbogglingly beautiful. To get to see the view, though, requires plenty of stamina during the arduous two-hour trek up and down two mountains. Bābak Khorramdin is thought of as a combination of Robin Hood, guerrilla fighter and a symbol…
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Escaping Tehran Once Again
Why we come here reluctantly and leave excitedlyI shot out of bed this morning but it wasn’t until later that I realized why. At breakfast, I felt the butterflies in my stomach. Then the image of the mountains I will face today flashed in my head and, viola, it finally dawned on me why I’m so zapped: And there’s a great third…
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Museum of Weapons at Shah’s Former Summer Pad
Bandar Anzali, IranOn the coast of Iran’s Caspian Sea there is a museum that can’t decide what it is. It’s a museum of weapons, lots and lots of weapons, from 500-year-old daggers to Soviet tanks – enough weapons for one to question mankind’s sanity. But then step upstairs and there’s a vivid glimpse of the lifestyle of long-exiled…
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Waiting in Iran, for 400 years
The day I fell in love with an abandoned caravansaraiA postal route operated here when North America wasn’t yet settled by Europeans. International traders slept here in style 200 years before there was even such a thing as the United States. But today the caravanserai of Zafaraniyeh sits empty and abandoned, like thousands of other ancient jewels all over Iran, victim of time, cultural amnesia…
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Stumbling Upon Antiquities in Iran
Highway boredom leads to a day of marveling Iran’s pastNear SABZEVAR, Iran – Iran is so old that sometimes even aimless tourists get to discover a village chock full of antiquities seemingly unnoticed by a government overwhelmed with the upkeep of thousands of similar jewels. It’s mid-August afternoon and wife Saeideh and I are speeding toward Sabzevar on the highway that used to be…
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Extreme Persian Generosity
My Endearing Experiences with the People of LorestanAs any tourist would attest, Iranians can get extreme with for their hospitality – which is one of the rewards of living in Iran and something I greatly miss when I’m not in Iran. Persians see offers of hospitality as essential to one’s expression of dignity. Someone who does not profusely offer hospitality is seen…
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Iran’s Wailing Wall
Strangely soothing even to a mere spectatorIMAM REZA SHRINE, MASHHAD, Iran – Beneath giant chandeliers and surrounded by bewilderingly intricate mirror artwork and calligraphy sits this nation’s equivalent of the Wailing Wall. Dar-al Hojjeh is an immense underground hall adjacent to the burial chamber of Imam Reza (Persian: امام رضا), whose 1000-year-old shrine is Iran’s spiritual nucleus and the world’s largest…
