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The next day we left Kashan and headed towards Tehran on the final leg of the tour. En-route we stopped at the Holy Shrine of Imam, which is the final resting place of Ayatollah Khomeini - the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The shrine is located halfway between Tehran and Qom, which is the most religious city in Iran and it is where the Ayatollah did his theological training.
To say the complex is huge would be a massive understatement. It has a gold dome sitting on a high drum, surrounded by four free-standing minarets eaching standing 91 metres high. The shrine is surrounded by a large rectangular plaza which has been designed to hold vast numbers of visitors, which is a good thing as apparently 10 million people turned up for the Ayatollah's funeral!
Inside, Khomeini's sarcophagus is centrally placed under the gilded dome. The dome is supported by eight large marble columns that circle the sarcophagus. The floor and wall surfaces are made of polished white marble and the floor is covered with fine carpets.
Construction started in 1989 on the death of the Ayatollah but it is still not finished. When it is completed it will cover over 5,000 acres (20km) and will house a cultural and tourist centre, a university dedicated to Islamic Studies, a shopping mall and a car park for 20,000 cars. It is quite an unbelievable sight.
From the Holy Shrine we headed to Behesht-e Zahra, which is Tehran's biggest cemetery. It is the main resting place for those who died in the Iran-Iraq War, which took place between 1980-88 and holds over 200,000 graves for what the Iranians call the futile war. Walking around the cemetery and reading the ages of the men who died and the personal messages from their family and friends you can easily see why they call it the futile war.
From here we continued our journey into the city and our last hotel of the tour.
As it was our last night together we all headed back to the Armenian Club, that we had visited on our first night, for our Last Supper. In true Iranian style I had a mixed kebab with both Lamb and Chicken, followed by Vanilla ice-cream (they didn't have any Saffron!).
I was really sorry to be saying goodbye to my fellow travellers. It has been a fantastic trip and Iran is definitely the best country that I have ever visited. I was amazed by it's history and culture, the food, the warmth and friendliness of the people. I met some amazing people who I am sure I will keep in touch with and hopefully one day I will get the chance to return to Iran.
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