Back in the present, we are now aiming south to head for Shiraz, a city chocked full of architecture and history. The drive is along decent enough highways, well sorta decent, there are some crazy rough patches but most is high speed. The cat, as per the norm is out cold and fully comfy. Our first stop and only stop on the way today will be at the Tomb of Cyrus the Great. Where Asareh told me when she was a kid you were still allowed to climb it, now to preserve it, everything is glassed off. We are spending 3 days in Shiraz so this blog will capture the first 2. We have also stripped the car down for this round, as we knew we would be in town and wanted a bit better fuel economy and no height restriction issues.
Arriving in town, the traffic is heavy, but not to bad and we find our Airbnb for the next 3 nights. Some take away chicken and we are sorted after a long day of driving. We decide to chill in the apartment for the night as tomorrow will be a busy day. We start our tour at the Eram gardens, built in the 18th century, they are to this day absolutely stunning still, the palace reminds me of a place a drug lord would live on an island in the Caribbean. The palace was closed today but we still were able to enjoy the shade of the gardens and relax. Asareh even got to hold a small puppy, and we bought a small toy for pina.
Our next to stops are for famous poets, the see their tombs. The first of which was 13th century poet Saadi Shirazi, and the second being Hafez Shirazi, quite lovely structures and gardens.
We spend the nights in the old town, the Bazar area is very cool, we grabbed a new leather bag and a few funky drinks, even had a sax player stay back and play some extra tunes for us when I arrived. As for the mosque, not as amazing as Mashad’s but still very impressive. I am saving my energy for tomorrow as we are going to visit Persepolis, The birthplace of the Persian empire.
