February 16, 2015
13h33
This morning we visited the Zoroastrian temple Ateshkadeh here in Yazd, one of the most important in Iran. A part from the garden and a room with a fire continuously on since 460 AD, there’s not much to see.
On a bench of the garden we took a couple of pictures with some local ladies… or so we thought! The husband in reality was able to zoom the mobile phone camera and only captured Luca and me, leaving out the two ladies. Shame. I thought he wouldn’t mind because he was the one who asked to take pictures of the four of us. But he kept the good ones for himself.
Amir Chakmaq Square
Later we went to Amir Chakmaq Square and its complex: a mosque, the Hosseinieh (so are called the buildings that commemorate an Imam), a small swimming pool with no water and a qanat (a well of the particular Iranian water system) that is now a gym (there are also some shows with bodybuilders from time to time).
Below the Hosseinieh there are some small shops. Among them a kebab restaurant, specialized in sheep heart and liver. Here we had lunch with the above mentioned skewers and dazi (but the one we had in Kashan was much better), later on a stop at a pastry shop and then quickly to the hotel because I needed the toilet.
This morning I bought a hejab, that scarf that covers your forehead and goes below the chin, covering the ears too,because the scarf that I was using to cover my hair keeps falling down and I have to check it all the time. Because I don’t know how people could react if my scarf fell in the middle of the crowd. Probably they wouldn’t be shocked, but annoyed yes. Better not to run the risk.
Yazd Old Town
After a coffee we walked around the old town of Yazd, made of clay and straw. The base of the walls is clay bricks, that are covered with a mixture of clay and straw instead of mortar.
Walking around these little alleys is magical. They are very narrow and still you can find a car sometimes; I don’t know how they can drive here, I would rather walk all the time.
All houses are surrounded by walls about 2-3 meters high, so you walk this alleys between walls.
We visited a traditional house (pretty, but after what we saw in Kashan, we weren’t really impressed), Alexander prisons (and we drank a tea in the well where worst prisoners were kept), we got lost, we paid one euro to go up to a roof where there’s a small café and an art gallery selling two cups and a bowl, just to take two (horrible) pictures. Then a tour of the bazaar and dinner at the Hosseinieh again, with chicken and more skewers because Luca didn’t want to have dinner again at the guesthouse (here many hotels are also good restaurants with local cuisine).
Incredible little town this Yazd.
