Don Croner’s Wanders: Iran

Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Iran | Yazd

Wandered by Yazd, a city of about one million people located near the middle of Iran. It is known as one of the hottest cities in the country. As with many cities in the desert water is held in high regard.

Main square of Yazd (click on photos for enlargements)

Main square of Yazd

Kids playing in the main square of Yazd. The city’s famous wind-catchers, which catch cool breezes and funnel them down into the buildings below, can be seen in the background. The wind-catchers were an early form of air-conditioning.

Skyline of Yazd with more wind-catchers

Wind-Catchers

Streets of Yazd

Mosque in Yazd

Detail of mosque in Yazd

Hotel where I stayed in Yazd

Courtyard of hotel where I stayed in Yazd

Courtyard of hotel where I stayed in Yazd. The perfect place for sipping a saffron tisane as the air cools off at twilight.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Iran | Esfahan | Abbasi Hotel

Wandered down to Esfahan, south of Tehran. I was especially looking forward to visiting Esfahan since I had booked a room at the legendary Abassi Hotel, which if not the city’s best hotel is certainly the most historic and picturesque.

Location of Esfahan (click on photos for enlargements).

The Abbasi Hotel was originally a caravanserai built during the time the the Safavid Sultan Husayn (1668—1726). It was restored and remodeled in the 1950s into an upscale hotel. Film buffs may recognize the hotel as the set for the 1974 movie Ten Little Indians starring Oliver Reed and German bombshell Elke Sommer. I had read some on-line reviews that groused about the small size of some of the rooms at the hotel. This was certainly not the case with my first floor room, which opened directly onto the courtyard. A troop of dancers, had one been available, could have bivouacked in the room with space left over for a camel or two.

This etching was made in 1840.

The basic layout of the building itself has changed very little since 1840. The two-story arched alcove near the right edge of the etching now hosts a charming little snack shop. The dome and minaret of the mosque seen looming over the top of the building are unchanged. Oh how I would have loved to have been in that courtyard when it still hosted camels! Note that the camels shown are Two-Humped Bactrians, the most noble of the world’s four-legged creatures, and not one-humped dromedaries. I would have had second thoughts about staying at the caravanserai if they had allowed in dromedaries, unless, of course, dromedaries were restricted to their own watering troughs.

Lobby of hotel. I took this photo at five o’clock in the morning. During the day and evening the lobby was a madhouse of milling tourists from England, Germany, Italy, Spain, China, and elsewhere. As far as I could tell I was the only American.

Courtyard of hotel

I spent my late afternoons in the courtyard enjoying glasses of refreshing hibiscus tisane with rock sugar. Clinically proven to lower your blood pressure!

Hotel lobby coffee shop where I got my morning caffeine fix. In the afternoons it was jammed with Chinese tour groups.

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Iran | Shiraz | Nasir al-Mulk Mosque

Wandered down to the city of Shiraz to visit the Nasir al-Mulk Mosque. Mirza Hasan Ali Nasir al-Mulk, a panjandrum in the Qajar Dynasty (1785–1925), commissioned the mosque in 1876 and it was finally finished in 1888. The mosque is known locally as the Pink Mosque because of the pink color incorporated in many of the tiles decorating its exterior and interior. According to local sources tile makers developed a method of using the color pink in tiles only in the mid-nineteenth century. They used the color with exuberance here. The mosque is also famous for its stained glass windows. While I was there a professional Chinese photographer was taking photos of luxuriously dressed Chinese models lolling in the pools of colored light cast by the stained glass. The models were wearing full-length dresses and headscarves. Some had donned beaded veils covering their faces below their eyes. The poses they had assumed were rather suggestive, however, and I could not help but wonder how they got away with this in a mosque. I waited until they left to take my own photos