We packed up and loaded up the van for Hamadan, which is located about 210 miles southwest of Tehran. The roads in Iran are great and we made the trip in under 4 hours, even stopping along the way three times: once for tea in the desert along the side if the road, once to buy some pomegranates that are in season right now, and then once for a petrol/bathroom stop. Gas costs about 85 cents a gallon here...
Once we made it to Hamadan, we stopped at the market and walked all around taking in the sights and smells. After all that sensory excitement it was time for lunch at a nearby cafe. When the cafe owner learned we were American, he was so excited and welcomed us to his city and wanted us to have a good time so we would go home and tell our friends how nice the people of Iran are. He cooked us an excellent lunch.
We then went to our hotel for the next two nights to quickly get checked in before setting out for more exploration of the area!
We then continued our touring by stopping at the tomb of Esther and Mordecai. It was a fairly cramped space built in the 1200s (I think?) which serves as an active synagogue for the town's Jewish community.
Our next stop was a very impressive archaeological dig. What was so neat about it was that you got to walk over the site on these scary wooden planks with rusted metal hand rails that shook with every step anyone took. The name of the site was Hegmataneh, and there was also a museum at the site which housed several artifacts found during various excavations.
We then drove a little ways up the mountain out if town until we came to our last stop of the day called Ganjnameh, or the Treasure Book. It consisted of two cuneiform inscriptions written on the side of the mountain and is written in three languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. Its purpose was to pay homage to Ahuramazda, the Zoroastrian deity.
After that, we made our way back to our hotel where we had dinner, or would have had I not passed out from sleep deprivation.
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