My 12 Day stay in Isfahan - Day 11 (morning) - Isfahan - Monare Jonban shaking minarets; pigeon Tower; the Atash Gah Fire temple and lunch at a local restaurant - The 7th of December 2017

The whole day was spent visiting monuments which were located slightly outside the city centre and which I for fairly well known reasons had not been able to visit. We (my hosts and I) stopped at the Monare Jonban shaking minarets, which do actually shake as the name seems to refer to. A huge crowd was waiting for the guardian to start shaking one at a scheduled time, as the other one would follow suit.


I wasn't surprised to realise that most onlookers were Iranian, almost certainly coming from other provinces. I found the mosque to be sober though rather interesting in terms of tile decoration, but also because it showcases the tomb of the 8th century Sheikh Amu Abdullah.

 

 

 

 

From there we drove around so as to locate one of the many old pigeon towers in the region, which have always architecturally caught my attention, particularly in what concerns their interior, not to mention the role they certainly played in the Safavid reign regarding the melon and cucumber crops. 

 

Not too far from where we would later have lunch at we saw a Fire temple  whose construction is believed to date back to the Elanite period. Because of the late hour we didn't climb up the hill to visit it and strolled around a rather cosy small garden before heading towards the restaurant instead.

The restaurant complex which reminded me of Asian pagodas was located in a fairly kitch-type of garden with wooden windmills and fountains but once we settled down in our private "booth-like" restaurant room and were served a copious meal I finally realised how clever Isaac and Saba had been by having chosen such a good restaurant.