The role the great Shirazi poet, Hafez played (and still plays) in the lives of the Iranian people is indisputably important. He wrote lyrical poems about love and the beloved which are understandably imbued with deep Sufi mystical meaning.
The octogonal kiosk like shrine is said to have substituted the 1773 tomb which is said to have been builot under the orders of Karim Khan Zand and while we were there was visited by hundreds of families. People kept on coming and going, which clearly gave us the idea that Hafez is well loved.
Martine, a Belgian trip companion, who had been a librarian managed to buy one of his books (written in Farsi) illustrated with extremelly beautiful handwritten extracts in the small bookshop behind the shrine, where I had hoped to buy an English or French version, which I later regreted not to have bought, for the sake of the presentation, had it been for anything else.
For a small sum, a copy of Hafez's best known anthology, the Divan could be ramdomly opened by a canary or budgerigar, which plucks out a card inscribed with couplets which proffers the future. I didn't try it out but I was later told that one the couples within our group did (though I never asked what they had been told).
The first real contact with the Iranian people was established whilst we were strolling around the beautiful gardens that surround the tomb. A few teenage students had been photographing me with their tablets prior to having approached me, so as to ask me where I was from.
A "theatrical-like" dialogue followed which incorporated quite a few gestures mixed with laughter, once the girls knew isolated words in English but weren't able to construct a full sentence. I found them to be rather interested in our home countries, which I managed to draw, as France and Portugal apparently made no sense to them until they managed to locate them geographically. Our little group was soon joined by local families wanting to find out where I was coming from and where I had already been to in Iran.
As we had to fly out to Esfehan that afternoon we drove across the old part of the city, which I still managed to photograph from inside the bus. I was particularly taken by the city walls.
The flight was delayed (as expected) but we took our time to stroll around and observe the people and this time I managed to discreetly take some photos of the airport entrance, which had called my attention.
We reached Isfahan at around ten in the evening and prior to checking into our royal -like hotel bedrooms had a late dinner (traditional kabâb wrapped in lavash with yogourt sauce) in the open hotel restaurant placed around the swimming-pool.
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