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Shiraz is one of the nicest towns of Iran. Its about 500km south of Esfahan, although we arrived there from Yazd after crossing the Kavir-é Abarkun desert. Its inhabitants have a reputation for partying, better than in the religious reputation of the people in Esfahan. The town had a reputation for its vineyards before the revolution, and many of them still remain. I assume that the grapes are for eating these days...
Again we toured some wonderful gardens, this time the Bagh-é Eram which was much larger than anything I had seen so far, with cypress trees and many fruit trees. In the midst of the garden is a Qajar-era palace: Kakh-é Eram. Shiraz is also the hometown of several famous Iranian poets, primarily Hafez (1324-1389) and Sa'di (1207-1291) who both also have their mausoleums in a beautiful garden.
The Mosques of Shiraz were wonderful, as the 19th Century Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque seen on the left and below. The ceramic tiles are colored differently from those of Esfahan, dark blue and red being much more prominent. But the quality and finesse of the work was comparable to Esfahan's Emam Mosque, even though it couldn't rival it in terms of grandeur. Note also the beautiful colored stalactite work on the inside of arches.
The most fun place where we experienced the Shirazi nightlife was on the terrace of hotel Homa. Somehow the tea-house is popular with the young, and every night we headed there for a Qalyan (water-pipe). These come in several flavors: nature, apple, orange and strawberry. It kind of reminds of the way some Belgian beers are flavored with fruits to make them more palatable to people who don't like beer in the first place... Apple-flavored Qalyan was very nice though, and where we can't get natural-flavor that's the one I go for.
We used Shiraz as a base to explore the region, in particular Persepolis and Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast. Bushehr was not particularly nice and I didn't see any American ship cruising the waters of the Gulf, nor any oil tankers... But the road to Bushehr crossed the beautiful Zagros mountain range, several large orchards and a huge forest of date palms.