Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After a breakfast of freshly baked bread, homemade jams and honey, fresh fruit and yoghurt we reluctantly left the Caravanserai and headed to Yazd.
Yazd is a city full of winding lanes, mud brick houses with a forest of badgirs (wind towers similair to the ones seen in Abarqu). This is definitely a place to just wander and get lost in a maze of historic streets and lanes. Yazd's old city is believed to be one of the oldest cities on earth. The buildings are made from sun dried mud bricks, which means everywhere you look you can see the brown skyline dominated by tall badgirs on almost every rooftop.
On arrival into Yazd we headed to the Towers of Silence. Set on top of two barren hilltops on the outskirts of Yazd the Towers of Silence where were the Zoroastrian people used to take their dead. The bodies would be laid on top of the towers and then they would be picked apart by vultures - nice! They would lay coins over the eyes and if the vultures pecked at the left eye first you would go to hell but if it was the right eye you went to heaven. Not very scientific but it worked for them. At the foot of the hills are several other Zoroastrian buildings all of which, and including the Towers, have not been used since the 1960's.
After lunch we enjoyed a walking tour of the old city. Dominating the old city and situated just a 2 minute walk from our hotel is the Masjed-e Jameh Mosque. It really is an impressive building with a tiled entrance portal that is one of the tallest in Iran. It is flanked by two magnificent minarets, which are both adorned with an inscription from the 15th Century. It is so colourful with a combination of blue, yellow, white and black tiles covering the dome, the main entrance and the courtyard. What I found really interesting was the gardoneh mehr or swastika symbol that was used on the tiles to symbolise infinity, timelessness, birth and death and not the nasty stuff that we associate it with. I must admit by this point I was beginning to overdose on mosques but this one was something quite special.
Next stop was Ateshkadeh or the Fire Temple. The flame is believed to have been burning since 470 AD. It can be viewed through a window in the entrance hall of the temple. The flame was transferred to Ardkan in 1174, then to Yazd in 1474 and has been housed in it's present site since 1940. It's like a mini Olympic flame that just travels around Iran.
Our walking tour ended with a walk through the Bazaar. By now it was late afternoon and the temperature was in the high 30's so most of the shops were closed for siesta. It was so nice to walk through the cooling alleyways of the deserted Bazaar without the usual hustle and bustle.
That night the hotel put on a buffet of local and traditional food. We feasted on Camel stew with potatoes, Aubergine stew with mutton, vegetable stew, which consists of herbs, beans, onion and spinach, the obligatory bread and yoghurt with cucumber. Then it was a quick trip to the supermarket next door for my daily dose of Saffron ice cream.
At 1am I was woken by what I thought was a tornado rattling through the hotel but it was in fact quite a serious sandstorm. My room was set just off the main courtyard and the noise of the storm was really loud. I tentatively opened my door to see sand being whirled around the courtyard so much so I couldn't see the other side! One of the other guests went up in the roof and said they couldn't see the minarets from the mosque next door so strong was the storm. The storm finished at about 3am and I eventually fell asleep with enough sand in my room to create my own beach!
- comments