Pars International Hotel Shiraz

... and relics that Sim and I were busily photographing. Although much of the structure was in ruins, enough remained (or had been restored) for us to get a real sense of the grandeur the city must have had in the time of Darius I, almost 2,500 years ago. While much of what we'd seen since arriving in Iran had been brand new to us, many of the stone reliefs and statues found in Persepolis we had seen before, in books or online. Seeing these incredible slices of history right ...

... was full of orange trees and created an oasis of calm in the midst of a bustling city. A small, but fascinating collection of photographs from the early 20th century were fascinating.<br><br> <br> Several rooms contained traditionally dressed mannequins depicting life in the royal court. This was typical Arabian nights with Kings or Shahs awaiting European visitors. Then we descended into the cool, bath houses of the castle with Marble ...

... t quite sure what it was, so he called his supervisor and there was a lengthy conversation in Farsi that I assume went something along the lines of "I've got an American here, do you know what we're supposed to do?" "I don't know, I thought you knew." And so it went for about 45 minutes of being taken to see different officials before finally being fingerprinted (only because the US fingerprints them say the Iranians) and then ...

... pisode Zand (du nom de la dynastie qui géra la Perse durant à peine 50 ans, au XVIIIè), devenant la capitale de l'Empire vouée ...

Welcome dear reader to the conclusion of the life and times of an Irishman in Shiraz on November 5th 2008. My, this has proved to be a longer day's blog than anticipated but so much happened, and so much for the sake of not getting personal will have to go unsaid, but if you were there you'll know what I'm not talking about!! Having been suitably impressed by Naqsh-e-Rostam and slightly narked by the 45 minutes timeframe, which ...

Shir*z - Ob*m* - hope A he*dy mix for *n Irishm*n on holid*y..... My frustr*tion with tv provision in Ir*n w*s not helped by our hotel in Shir*z. Perfectly lovely hotel but * fuzzy reception where CNN w*s me*nt to be. This turned out to be * room by room hit-*nd-miss thing. Well it didn't hit my room, *nd missed it by * mile. The morning w*s no better. But G*ry I he*r you respond, you're on holid*y, television shouldn't m*tter. Th*t is true norm*lly, but tod*y, this morning ...

Greetings again friends and family throughout the world, and welcome to part 2 of this fantastic journey I will try my best to recount. There are some things, of course, that words just cannot describe. In fact, most things. I am continually thinking of you, wishing that perhaps one day you can experience and see what has happened to me in the last couple of weeks, and feel the notion that the trip is not yet nearly finished, despite how quickly the day of parting is ...

There was no reason for me to go to Bandar Abbas. Neither was there a reason for my decision to book a one-way flight to the port city on the Persian Gulf, directly across from the Dubai peninsula. The reactions of Iranians to my wanting to go there ranges from disbelief ("Why would any tourist want to go there?") to active discouragement ("Even we Iranians shun the place. It's so bloody hot.") If I have to give it a reason, it would be that I wanted to see both of Iran's ...

... friends are related to her, and that in fact the German and Iranian peoples share blood ties. At the second or third instance when our tour guide expounded some variant of this theory, Peter, who had already squirmed at the repeated utterance of the word "Aryan", finally had to put her ideas to rest politely. "Ah well, we don't really think we are Aryans." Little did the tour guide know how this seemingly friendly gesture of finding common ground had aroused several ...

Life in the dessert heat without watermelon is practically unbearable. It is one of nature's wonderful gifts that watermelons thrive in desiccated country like Iran, quenching the thirst of all. "Hendune", the Farsi word for watermelon, is on par with bathroom as a set of survival vocabulary. I am happy to report that not only are hendunes plentiful and cheap in Iran, they are also some of the best I've had. It was by being in Iran that it dawned on me why the Chinese call watermelons ...