Shiraz - Iran : Tony Wheeler's SlideshowShow Video Details ↓ Tony Wheeler: [noise] I'm Tony Wheeler, I'm one of the people who started Lonely Planet more years ago than I care to remember and travel is something that I've been doing for years and I hope to keep on doing for many more years. [music] [music] Now back in 1972, when we did that first trip, we didn't go to Shiraz but I have been back to Shiraz recently and it's one of the best cities in Iran. It's a favorite city for Iranian tourists and for overseas visitors to Iran. Iran is an amazingly friendly country. It's got this bad reputation but people who go there as a visitor find it's safe to travel around, it's an easy country to travel around, transport is really good, it's easy to find hotels, the food is excellent and Shiraz is a definite favorite. But unfortunately you are not going to be able to drink Shiraz wine or Syrah wine as they call it in America in Shiraz because of course alcohol is totally banned in Iran. And here we are, we're in the place where Omar Khayyam said that... what did he want? He wanted a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and wow. And the wine he would have been drinking would have been Shiraz wine from Shiraz and you can't have it anymore. Doesn't matter. It's still worth going to see this city. The Persians, the Iranians they love poetry. This is still a place where you can sit around drinking a cup of tea and quote poetry to each other. And one of the finest places to do it is at the Tomb of Hafez. Hafez actually is even more popular than Omar Khayyam. We know Omar Khayyam better in the west but Hafez in Persia, in Iran is even more popular and his tomb is a major pilgrimage spot. It's got a very nice little tea house and cafe restaurant involved as well so you can go there and you can sit by his tomb and have a cup of tea and maybe read some Hafez poetry while you're thinking about it. The Iranians, they love to drink tea and they love to picnic. There's a river that runs through Shiraz and if you're there on a holiday or a weekend, you'll see lots of citizens of Shiraz going out and setting up picnics and sitting by the riverside and they're very friendly and outgoing people. If you're strolling along the river you'll probably get an invitation to join them and have a cup of tea and discuss the political situation. They know they can do it with you OK which they couldn't necessarily with their own people. So Shiraz is a great place to visit and of course it's got this old fork with a somewhat leaning tower on one corner. It's got mosques, it's got markets. But to be honest the big attraction of Shiraz is not in Shiraz itself, it's a little bit outside of the city and that's Persepolis. Persepolis is the ancient city, it's as anchor water is to Cambodia or Bagan is to Burma or Machu Pichu is to Peru. It's the deserted, ancient city and it is just a magnificent place full of these fantastic barber leaf carvings and statues, and pillars and colons. It's in ruins but it's enough for you to see that you really can spend some time wandering around there and appreciating just how old the history of Iran, the history of Persia is and also what a great capital it was. Well who wrecked the place? Alexander the Great. The Greek conqueror came out here, attacked Persepolis, took the town, sacked it, carted everything away. Now, he wasn't quite like the more recent invasion of Baghdad. He did manage to preserve things after he'd got them. He emptied out the museum, he didn't just let it be destroyed. But certainly when you're in Iran, go to Shiraz and make that excursion out to Persepolis. Of course the markets, the bazaars of Shiraz have all sorts of goods on sale but, let's face it, what is the thing you think of when you think of Iran or Persia as its old name was? You think of Persian carpets. And Shiraz is a good place as any other to load up on Persian carpets. They are not a good souvenir to take home. Let's face it. They are big and bulky and your local Persian carpet shop will have them just as cheap as you're going to be able to buy them when you're actually in Persia, in Iran. But come on, it's nice to go there and look at the carpets, get a feel for them, drink the tea that the carpet salesman will provide, get some sort of feeling where different carpets come from. Shiraz is a major carpet manufacturing area of Iran and it's a place where you'll learn something about the carpets and maybe when you get home you'll buy one even if you don't buy one while you're actually in Shiraz. [silence] … |