We finally arrived into a cooler, less air polluted Shiraz at 10pm and drove straight to our hotel. Set in the Old City amongst a maze of alleyways was the Niayesh Boutique Hotel. The hotel is over 100 years old and it was originally built to hold the Literature Association of Shiraz before becoming a publishing house. It is one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever stayed in. All of the rooms surround an indoor courtyard with huge bed like sofas, tables and cha...

On day 2 of the tour we were meant to take an 8am flight from Tehran to Shiraz. However, Caspian Air, that well known international carrier, decided to cancel all flights. It was agreed that we would spend another day in Tehran and wait to see what the airline would do. I was actually quite glad that we had an extra day as there were a few places I wanted to see. I took a taxi to the S'ab Abad Musuem complex, which is in the North West corner of the city. The fu...

After an interesting journey from Manchester to Tehran via Istanbul I arrived into Iran at 3am on Saturday morning. Hours late, hot, bothered and tired but who cares - I was finally in Iran. I had heard that the Iranian people were really friendly and welcoming and I would feel very safe. This was shown to me within minutes of landing when I went to the Money Exchange. I handed over my cash to be told "this is an official exchange so the prices are set by the gov...

When I go off on my travels I'm very much a comfort over style sort of girl. I have a drawer full of my travelling gear from zip off trousers, waterproofs, fleeces, walking boots to well worn t-shirts. A couple of weeks before I'm due to leave I'll have a look at what I've got, replace what I need to replace and that's me done. However, due to the strict moral code of Iran flinging a few old faithful's into a backpack and hoping for the best just wasn't an optio...

I can't believe this time tomorrow I'll be on my way to Iran. I can honestly say I don't think I have ever been so excited about visiting a destination as I am about Iran. Iran has never been on my wish list - in fact until last September I didn't even know if it was actually possible to visit Iran as a western tourist. This changed when I was travelling through the Balkans and I met a fellow traveller from Switzerland who had just been to Iran. She absolutely r...