Tuesday, 27 February 2018

My 12 Day stay in Isfahan - Day 11 (afternoon and evening ) - Isfahan - The garden park and dinner - The 7th of December 2017


The afternoon was spent strolling around a garden park which grows a huge variety of flower and plant species. It briefly reminded me of Horto do Campo Grande, a similar compound in Lisbon, though maybe three or four times smaller than the one I got to visit in Isfahan.
 
 
I was impressed with its size, but the truth is the more I thought about Iranians'love for nature the more it made sense to have such a garden park as they called it. I was given a rather meaningful special  bunch of flowers by my hosts to signal out my long stay and our forthcoming friendship.  



































Part of the evening was spent with a guest couple from the UK (though Maria was from the Netherlands), who brought a few edible things which together with what was left over from lunch contributed to our dinner party.
 



















 

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.

 



















 

My 12 Day stay in Isfahan - Day 10 (evening) - Isfahan - Bazaar shopping - The 6th of December 2017

 
The idea of having an exhibition on Isfahan organised when I got back started being "shaped" in my mind. Why I wanted people back home to get a different perspective than the one they have (had expressed) on Iran and Iranians was again unknown to me ... I wanted to share Isfahani Art with them together with pictures of monuments worth being visited at least once in a lifetime. This led me to go to the Bazaar with Isaac and buy artefacts I still lacked in my collection so as to be able to show my Portuguese colleagues a wider range of traditional Isfahani Art. 
 
 













Carpets ... yes, I needed to buy a Nomadic one ... embroidered  brocades, gaz ... and or any other typical edible something ... I didn't exactly know where to start but I was determined to do something about it whether it worked or not I wasn't yet sure.



















Having gone across the illuminated tunnel on my way to one of the best gaz production factories according to what Isaac had been told made my ideas start getting clearer ... and after  dinner even more ... I theoretically knew what I wanted to do ..., whether it would pay off in terms of my efforts I would only find out later.




































(Some of the artefacts I bought and was given)