Apologies, I am now three weeks behind.. Will try to catch up, by being shorter and more selective (and thus probably less boring...) When this is posted, I am actually already in Turkmenistan.. (Oups...)
After my spontaneous arrival in the capital, I stayed in the end longer than I initially wanted, but not because I found this city particularly beautiful. It is true that the city hosts some of the greatest museums of the country, but I thought the city as such was not that nice. But my host and the environment in which I lived here more than made up for this. Right on the first night when i arrived, Luca took me to a dinner party of a rich Iranian lady and her sister (for which I was not properly dressed as I had not foreseen any such social events during my trip and looked like the standard tourist (however - at least as far as I think - way more classy than the standard German tourist... Just for the records :-) ). It was a group of less than 20 people: businessmen, two famous Iranian artists (one sculptor and one theatre director), gallerists, a diplomat and myself. The soirée took place in a luxurious apartment in the North of Tehran, where the wealthy people live (it is higher up and close to Mount Damavand, with 5671m the highest mountain in the Middle East). This world was quite a contrast to the Iran I had seen so far. All of them had travelled the world extensively, many of them having lived abroad for a long time and / or have secondary / third residences there. I had some really interesting conversations about the Iran of before the Islamic revolution, today's Iran and perspectives for the future. Judgments here were more informed than in my previous conversations as the level of education and exposure to other forms of society were much higher. The next day I did not do anything. I just felt like relaxing, which was easy as I was staying in probably the nicest "house" of Tehran. It was a former summer residence of a rich family, which Italy bought as an Ambassador's residence in the 1920ies if my memory serves me correctly.. Sorry Luca, I have already forgotten everything you told me...). It has a main building, which was the place guests had been received, a "harem", the private part where women and children lived (and where I was hosted .. ) and, most importantly I would say: a huge Persian garden, with water basin, water channels, etc. In this paradise, the birds were singing and you could hardly hear the hectic life and traffic outside. The next day, Gabriele, a friend of Luca, also from Brussels and which I know from sight only, arrived. He planned to start a round-trip with a driver and a guide two days later. As his tour partly covered what I had programmed as well, I decided to join him for a week, which made my logistics just so much easier (to have a private driver for a longer period is sheer luxury for my travel standards ;-) ). As we are all three convinced Europeans, we of course watched the Eurovision Song Contest, as Luca receives RAI1 via satellite and saw Conchita "sausage" Wurst winning (as I learned later, she also became an icon for the Iranian gay community very quickly, who seems to follow the Eurovision with great interest). Luca also took us out to a very stylish and trendy restaurant and organised a dinner at the residence in Gabriele's honour (i had not been foreseen that early...), where I partly met again the same people from the soirée three days before. I really had extremely enjoyable evenings!!! Thanks, Luca!!! ;-)
During the days, I wandered around the city, tried the very modern and efficient metro and visited some of the many sights: Golestan palace (another UNESCO world heritage site), some of the parks, the bazaar (see separate chapter on bazaars), the very nice glass and ceramics museum in a beautiful building and the fantastic jewellery museum, with an amazing collection (inter alia the world's biggest diamond, several crowns (including the one Farah Diba has worn at the crowning ceremony), several thrones fully covered by precious stones and literally thousands of pieces of jewellery and kilos of loose precious stones. No wonder is hidden in the fortified basement of the national bank! ;-)
Photos
After my spontaneous arrival in the capital, I stayed in the end longer than I initially wanted, but not because I found this city particularly beautiful. It is true that the city hosts some of the greatest museums of the country, but I thought the city as such was not that nice. But my host and the environment in which I lived here more than made up for this. Right on the first night when i arrived, Luca took me to a dinner party of a rich Iranian lady and her sister (for which I was not properly dressed as I had not foreseen any such social events during my trip and looked like the standard tourist (however - at least as far as I think - way more classy than the standard German tourist... Just for the records :-) ). It was a group of less than 20 people: businessmen, two famous Iranian artists (one sculptor and one theatre director), gallerists, a diplomat and myself. The soirée took place in a luxurious apartment in the North of Tehran, where the wealthy people live (it is higher up and close to Mount Damavand, with 5671m the highest mountain in the Middle East). This world was quite a contrast to the Iran I had seen so far. All of them had travelled the world extensively, many of them having lived abroad for a long time and / or have secondary / third residences there. I had some really interesting conversations about the Iran of before the Islamic revolution, today's Iran and perspectives for the future. Judgments here were more informed than in my previous conversations as the level of education and exposure to other forms of society were much higher. The next day I did not do anything. I just felt like relaxing, which was easy as I was staying in probably the nicest "house" of Tehran. It was a former summer residence of a rich family, which Italy bought as an Ambassador's residence in the 1920ies if my memory serves me correctly.. Sorry Luca, I have already forgotten everything you told me...). It has a main building, which was the place guests had been received, a "harem", the private part where women and children lived (and where I was hosted .. ) and, most importantly I would say: a huge Persian garden, with water basin, water channels, etc. In this paradise, the birds were singing and you could hardly hear the hectic life and traffic outside. The next day, Gabriele, a friend of Luca, also from Brussels and which I know from sight only, arrived. He planned to start a round-trip with a driver and a guide two days later. As his tour partly covered what I had programmed as well, I decided to join him for a week, which made my logistics just so much easier (to have a private driver for a longer period is sheer luxury for my travel standards ;-) ). As we are all three convinced Europeans, we of course watched the Eurovision Song Contest, as Luca receives RAI1 via satellite and saw Conchita "sausage" Wurst winning (as I learned later, she also became an icon for the Iranian gay community very quickly, who seems to follow the Eurovision with great interest). Luca also took us out to a very stylish and trendy restaurant and organised a dinner at the residence in Gabriele's honour (i had not been foreseen that early...), where I partly met again the same people from the soirée three days before. I really had extremely enjoyable evenings!!! Thanks, Luca!!! ;-)
During the days, I wandered around the city, tried the very modern and efficient metro and visited some of the many sights: Golestan palace (another UNESCO world heritage site), some of the parks, the bazaar (see separate chapter on bazaars), the very nice glass and ceramics museum in a beautiful building and the fantastic jewellery museum, with an amazing collection (inter alia the world's biggest diamond, several crowns (including the one Farah Diba has worn at the crowning ceremony), several thrones fully covered by precious stones and literally thousands of pieces of jewellery and kilos of loose precious stones. No wonder is hidden in the fortified basement of the national bank! ;-)
Photos
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