Ramsar Azadi Hotel

... how they could survive there specially in the freezing cold of winter, and a lot of other questions.

This fortress was in use by the local governors of the Alborz long before Hassan-e-Sabbah ended up there. Considering the hardship of the trip by today's means of transportation, it could be realized how much more difficult it could have been for the foreign invaders to discover this area.

Passing through Moalem Kelayeh, you know that ...

Dear Sir/Madam

You are invited to participate in a research study. The purpose of the study is to gain insight into how visitors of Iran perceive Iran’s brand image and destination personality. Your truthful responses will help the tourism authorities of Iran to better understand your perceptions and experiences and to serve you better. The data obtained from this research will be used to complete a ...

 The image of Iran as a travel destination 

Dear Sir/Madam

You are invited to participate in a research study. The purpose of the study is to gain insight into how visitors of Iran perceive Iran’s brand image and destination personality. Your truthful responses will help the tourism authorities of Iran to better understand your perceptions and experiences and to serve you better. The data obtained from this research will be used to ...

(Jim)

We awoke early the next morning and made our way to the airport, looking like a Persian carpet refuge with all of our extra purchases in tow. I was worried about how much our new carpet was going to put us over whatever baggage allowance Iran Airways had in place – it weighed a ton to carry and wasn't ever going to fit into our backpacks. We were at the mercy of the local check-in staff. As it turned out I shouldn't have worried – our bags and ...

(Sim)

The bus from Rasht to Tehran was due to take 5 hours, however it took more than 8 due to traffic backlogs on the approach to Tehran. For the first few hours on the bus we enjoyed the subsie (meaning green and also vegetable in Farsi) terrain as we drove through rolling hills and rambling forests. Emerging from a large multi-lane tunnel the scenery changed dramatically. It was like the picture had been changed from colour to black and white; the earth was dry and desert like ...

The next morning we started the long, long drive to Esfahan. We drove for hours towards Tehran, stopping in a small town for lunch for kebabs, before continuing on our way. Adam wanted to push past Tehran to avoid having to deal with it the next day, but traversing it proved slightly more difficult than we had expected, aided of course by Lee's spectacular navigational skills… Then followed roughly two hours of driving around in circles past the airport and scraping down side ...

I was almost certain that I was the only guest at the Khalaj Hotel last night. The clerk was slightly surprised to see me when I checked in. Walking up the stairs and down the hallway to my room, there was only an eerie silence and a stillness in the air. After I settled into my big room, I walked outside under the cover of darkness to explore the shoreline of the Caspian Sea a few hundred yards away. The waves were coming ...

It was close to ten O' clock in the morning when I knocked on the door of Peter and Matthias’ room. Matthias groggily opened the door; Peter was still unconscious on his bed. Last night at the teahouse, we discussed the possibility of going to Zanjan together. But the Dutch couple told us the big mosque of Soltaniyeh, which was the main attraction and an UN heritage site in Zanjan, was closed when they were there on Friday. The guys were too groggy to decide ...

The small room has a window that opens out to a tiny quad that is enclosed by the walls and windows of the adjacent rooms from the first floor up to the roof – it was more an ill-designed fire escape than a courtyard which offered no ventilation. I spent a restless night in the stifling heat generously donating my blood to a colony of vicious mosquitoes. I was not a happy man when dawn finally arrived.

At 8 in the morning, the front desk phoned me to say ...

With a little imagination, I can picture the Hotel Naderi back in its heyday as a small and respectable hotel in the 1950s. A vintage round clock hung on the wall overlooking the enormous front desk in the large lobby, behind which the clerk used his saliva to wet his fingers in order to separate the delicate triplicate forms and insert the flimsy carbon paper between them. Papers were slowly shuffled and stuffed into dark wooden pigeonholes, drawers ...