Night in a caravanserai, or: a night like in a fairytale

Between Kashan and Kerman, we spent one night in the 400 year old Caravanserai Zein-o-Din, which is one of the few still existing caravanserais in a round shape, beautifully restored and now turned in a very small guesthouse. It is situated in the middle of the (semi-) desert with beautiful mountains behind. The caravanserai does not have rooms, but wooden podiums surrounded by curtains, with nice carpets and (rather thin) mattresses the floor, which was a bit hard for my taste, but in the end I slept quite ok. The caravanserai was beautifully decorated and the entire place was just magic... I think the photos speak for themselves and since I took so many, I thought I would dedicate a specific post on this one... Its door also shows a typical feature of old doors here in the region: two different door-knockers, one for men (long) and one for women (round) (interestingly, quite a sexual reference...) so that those inside would know even before opening who is outside to know whether a woman or a man would open. Normally, the huge roof terrace of the caravanserai is an amazing place to observe stars, but as we had full moon, the stars were actually not that spectacular, but still, the place had a really nice atmosphere. We enjoyed the nice breeze, the view of the full moon while having an evening tea and biscuits (and later got invited by the driver of the other group to a glass of home-made Shirazi wine, mixed with some local grape liquor - quite a brew...(!!!).  The taste was not spectacular, but I would still describe it as interesting.... This leads me to the issue of alcohol here in Iran, which is strictly forbidden by law, but still seems to be quite wide-spread in private / protected environments. In Teheran, at a small dinner party in the apartment of a lady which is part of what I would call the cosmopolitan Persian elite (with artists, businessmen and some spontaneous foreign guests such as myself present), but also in a small village where I was invited to a home and where they not only pulled out some home-made 80% strong liquor but also bought a (Danish!!!) beer in my honour in some secret shop in the village. It seems that there is quite some alcohol consumption by Iranians, made possible by major smuggling, inter alia via Dubai...

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GI9HKKP883v