Walking around the Royal Square allowed us not only to see its real dimension, the one we hadn't been able "grasp" to the previous night but also the key monuments we would be visiting later - to our left, the 1603 Masjed-e Sheykh Lotfallah, to our right the 1600 Ali Qapu Palace with its rather exquisite "brick boot box" (in the words of Robert Byron) and straight in front of where we were standing, the 1612 Masjed-e Iman.
I could now understand more clearly why families came together in this square and took hold of every inch of grass ... there was something rather cosy about it, despite the size and then as I looked around there were enamoured couples, mothers playing with their small children, some family members ready for some pick-nicking, as others sat in a relaxing type of mood under the shade of a tree ... clothes to dry (I wondered why they had been put out there) ... all, in all a fairly quiet and contemplative atmosphere I didn't dislike ... I felt like lying on a stretch of grass, close to the fountain, where the temperature was more bearable ... (it was going to be a warm afternoon, I could feel it ...).
As we were heading back to the entrance of the Sheikh Lotfallah mosque three things caught my attention, a polo pole standing on its own in one of the pedestrian accesses (I was then told that polo had been invented by the Iranians, which I must confess I didn't know), two imans walking by in black turbans (we were later told the different meanings regarding the colours of the turbans) and the partly painted façade of one of the entrances to the Bazaar, which we would later go back to).
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