Series
As soon as I arrived in Iran, my friends Shahriar and Isabelle took me on a tour of the archeological wonders of the country. The next few updates recount our trip and the many things I discovered.
The three of us and our driver Karim headed out to the small town of Kashan, about 250km south of Tehran. This was my first encounter with Persian architecture, designs, paintings and tile work.
We started by visiting a Persian garden: Bagh-é Fin, which was built for Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty in the late 1500's. Gardens are very important in the Persian culture, the old Persian word for garden was paridaïza which gave us paradise.
Since Iran is mostly arid, water and displays of its abundance are a true sign of richness. The shade of trees and the presence of water make the gardens cool and are a great comfort in such a harsh climate.
The culture of the garden is still very ingrained into people. Well-to-do city dwellers will have a garden outside of town, behind a wall (for privacy), where they go on weekends. There is a small building to provide shade and prepare food, but usually no sleeping accommodations. Less well to do people go and spend time in the many gardens that have now become public in cities. People will go there to romance each other, although touching hands is about as much a display of affection as can be tolerated in public.
We also visited a series of houses dating from the early 1800's. These belonged to rich merchants, or may be nobility. They are usually set around a courtyard, and the facades are beautifully ornate. The ceilings and walls are painted with beautiful patterns and designs, usually non-figurative. Windows are framed with wooden arches and sometimes covered with stained glass. In Kashan I have not seen much of the ceramic tiles that are so beautiful in other parts of the country, instead the patterns are engraved in the stucco facade of the houses (reminiscent of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain).
Finally we walked around the bazaar, where I met a lady in chador (the black cloth that covers women from head to toe, the word means tent in Farsi) who stroke a conversation with great natural, and in perfect English. Another proof that one should never trust appearances, especially in this country.