YYYYI had been dreaming of traveling to Iran for a long time. For me Iran has always represented the pinnacle of civilization along with Mesopotamia and Egypt. My honeymoon destination was Egypt, in the spring of 1986, a difficult time as President Reagan had just bombed Libya and the Sixth Fleet was anchoring at ease in the Mediterranean. Egypt was empty of tourists and Arab tempers were on edge. Even so, my husband and I spent a month discovering the country of the pharaohs.
YYYYAbout Persia all I knew was from books and from Iranian people who were forced to leave the country after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Such was their sorrow, their nostalgia and their anger with the new regime that it was difficult to expect from them an objective view of the country.
YYYYWhen I became part of the Association of Arab Diplomatic Ladies, I thought that a trip to Iran would be viable, one of the premises of the association being to create a space for meeting and dialogue between the Arab world and other countries. It was never raised… No comment. Islam also needs ecumenism between its different lines of thought.
YYYYOne fine day I met Ana María Tutzó and there I glimpsed the possibility of embarking on an adventure. With her I visited Lebanon, India, Armenia, Georgia, Poland and Hungary. Only she could help me carry out the dream that I always cherished. She agreed and in a short time we had a group, which is not so easy in these difficult times that she is going through in Spain.
YYYYOn May 26, a group of 15 people, all ladies, set out on a trip to one of the most exotic destinations on the map: Persia.
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YYYYOn May 27 we began our visit. Our first stop was the Golestan Palace, a palace complex from the Qajar period. Both the palace and the gardens are World Heritage Sites.
YYYYWith heat and a good appetite we went to a restaurant in the center where we savored our first taste of Iranian food. After lunch, most of us went to the carpet museum where they taught us about the art of weaving and dyeing silk, as well as the importance of the number of knots in making them.
YYYYAt 17:XNUMX p.m. we were all prepared and very elegant for the visit to the Spanish Residence in Tehran. There the ambassador, Pedro Villena and his wife Zita Loesaus-Polus were waiting for us. It was a warm and endearing reception. We were welcomed by a small orchestra of young musician-composers who delighted us with traditional Persian music performed on ancient and unknown instruments such as the tanbur (an instrument similar to the lute and considered a sacred instrument by the Kurds), the three-stringed zither, the santur (of Assyro-Babylonian origin with a percussion string in which horizontally arranged strings are struck), the daf (a kind of large tambourine), and the zarb or tombak (a percussion instrument made of a skin attached to a ceramic funnel).
YYYYThe next day, Wednesday the 28th, we visited the National Museum where the most important ancient remains of the country are concentrated. It has, without a doubt, extremely valuable archaeological and historical pieces, but it lacks good explanations in a lingua franca and a detailed chronological order. This must be influenced by the lack of means and the low tourism that the country has had so far.
YYYYFrom the National Museum we headed towards the Museum of Glass and Ceramics. It is a beautiful building from the mid-XNUMXth century. However, it does not have a large collection.
YYYYAfter a break to eat and rest from the heat we went to the Saad Abad Palace or White Palace of the Prince. It is currently the National Museum. It was built between 1931 and 1939 And among other valuable pieces we could see the sword of Simón Bolívar. The entire paving is made of green marble, characteristic of Yadz, and is covered by immense tapestries. The furniture is totally European-French. On the first floor we can see wall paintings depicting hunting scenes inspired by Iranian epics. Outside, a pair of legs shod in bronze boots that are the remains of a statue of Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, are striking.
YYYYNext, we went to the Bazaar (which we just walked through) to get to the Imam Khomeini Mosque. It was our first wearing a chador and consequent difficulty covering our hair. The temple was built during the reign of Shah Fath Ali in 1808. The structure is the classic Iranian mosque, with four iwans placed axially around a central courtyard with its pond. The entire complex is covered in blue and yellow tiles.
YYYYAt the exit, a middle-aged lady approached me with a dazzling smile and presented me with 15 yellow rosaries. I want to think that you all keep them…
YYYYWe left for shiraz, the capital of the province of Fars, the same Wednesday the 28th, on the flight at 21:15 p.m. We arrived on time due to rush hour. Finally, the flight was delayed. We had dinner on board and when we landed all we thought about was a good shower and going to bed. We stayed at the Homa, a five-star hotel. After the usual commotion of sharing rooms and requests for a Wi-Fi code, the entire group retired to their room to rest.
YYYYWe continue on our way to head to the Khan's Madrassa, founded in 1615 by the governor of Fars, Irnam Quli Khan. It was restored numerous times during the Qajar era and is still in use today. It was a kind of Plato's Academy. Mola Sadra Shirazi, one of the most important philosophers of the XNUMXth century, taught there. The trees and flowers make your interior patio a haven of peace and silence. The façade and iwans in the inner courtyard are beautifully decorated.
YYYYLa Nassir al Molk Mosque It is of Qajar architecture, it does not have more than two iwans. One of the prayer rooms has braided columns illuminated by stained glass windows that provide a spectacular rainbow to the entire place. The color and decoration of the ceramics that adorn it bear witness to a beautiful and sweet decadence.
YYYYNext, we go to the Narenjestan-Ghavan Palace. Behind such a modest portal hides such an extraordinary palace. A beautiful hall of mirrors opens onto the patio. There are figurative paintings everywhere, but the ones on the ceiling of the women's room and the Hammam deserve mention. It is decorated with paintings and has been transformed into a tea room and a restaurant. Next to it is a cistem and a ventilation chimney also from the time of Shah Karim Khan.
YYYYIranians do not worship their military heroes or their exploits. They do, however, their poets, their mystics, their philosophers. We see this by visiting the beautiful marble mausoleums of the great Hafez and the great Saadi.
YYYYHafez, nickname of Mohammad Semsu od Din, is considered one of the greatest glories of Persian Letters. His pseudonym means "the one who knows by heart." He would recite the Qur'an from beginning to end and vice versa. He dedicated his life to mysticism and Sufism. His exemplary life gave him fame as a saint and his tomb is a destination for pilgrims from all over the country every year.
YYYYHafez's tomb consists of a small dome resting on eight columns, sheltering a marble tomb beautifully decorated with Koranic calligraphy. It dates from the Zands era. The tomb is located in a secret garden that encourages meditation, crying, laughter, gratitude, petitions and prayer. Hafez himself said that his tomb would be a place of pilgrimage for all the sages.A
YYYYsaadi, the most immortal of the Shiraz poets, received a solid and refined training in Baghdad. He is considered the best poet in Iran and one of the best poets in the Islamic world. His works El Vergel and La Rosaleda refer to nature and flowers and have been translated into many languages. His mausoleum is another "sacred" place for the Iranian people. It was built in 1952 by André Godard, a French archaeologist. It has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. An underground pool in the basement contains minnows sacred to the poet. Popular belief says that they cannot be caught as it would mean immediate death.
YYYYShiraz is a city of poetry and a religious city, a destination for pilgrims. We visit its main building in the morning: the mausoleum of Sha-e Cheragh (the King of Light). He was buried in Shiraz and over time his grave became the most revered place in the country. The first tomb was built in the XNUMXth century, but the current building dates from the XNUMXth century.
YYYYIn the evening we had, we could say, the gala dinner of the Journey. On the recommendation and Prussian insistence of Zita (the ambassador's wife), the tour operator took us to the best restaurant in Shiraz: the Haft Khan. The building had several floors and in each one the decoration varied in style and the type of food, too. We ate dinner in the basement decorated in The Thousand and One Nights: in a very large space there were several round platforms raised from the ground and supported by a central axis. We accessed them barefoot and sitting on carpets with our legs crossed and elbows on cushions in the manner of the court of Harun al Rachid we tasted the typical Iranian dish. The laughter and the comments were the best part of the dinner, especially when Morteza, who dined on our platform, told us that a senior member of the Supreme National Security Council was dining in front of us and all of us wore our handkerchiefs half down. We loved the dinner based on humus and other sauces and chicken with plums accompanied by rice. We took photos and I could see that all of us were happy and enjoying the night.
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