Iran: Mashhad to Shiraz

This morning we began with an exploration of the shrine of Imam Reza, who was the eighth Imam. It is a huge pilgrimage site, and indeed we saw people from all over the Muslim world. Estimates are that over 18 million people a year come to visit here. The site was actually more of a complex of buildings dating back to the 16th century. The tile work was extraordinary. Unfortunately the sun was in a bad place for a lot of pictures but what I've attached are easy to tell which are from the complex: anything that has lots of tiles on it is from there. The complex also holds several museums, including a calligraphy and Koran museum and a carpet museum that had some gorgeous carpets within its walls.

Our next stop was a leather market, since Mashhad is known for their leather products. There were some gorgeous coats but I didn't see anything that screamed for me to buy it. Looking at all that leather, we really worked up an appetite, so we ate a delicious lunch at a nearby restaurant.

After lunch, we headed back to our hotel to finish packing up and check out. Then we packed up the van and headed just out of Mashhad to Toos, which is where the epic poet Ferdowsi is entombed. On our way to the site, we passed by an old man playing the do-tar which is a local two-stringed instrument. The monument itself is square and has verses from his epic poem on it. He died in the 11th century and the monument erected 9 centuries later.

We visited the inside, where he tomb is actually located among several reliefs of scenes from his epic poem. Also on the site, was a museum which contained artifacts related to his work, including artwork, old saddles, old weapons, etc.

Our next stop was the Haroonie Historical monument, which no one really knows why it was built. It had a long row of roses in front and was an interesting looking structure.

We then made our way back to Mashhad, but a fairly nasty thunderstorm had hit while we were out of town, so traffic was very slow moving. We were going to stop at the pilgrim's bazaar, but since we were stuck in traffic for so long, we decided to head straight to the airport to catch our flight to Shiraz instead.

We are dinner at a restaurant in the airport, and then after a slight delay, boarded our flight to Shiraz, which took about an hour and a half. When we landed, we were happy to see our driver from the first part of our trip who had been with us since Tehran and who dropped us off at the Tabriz airport yesterday! Like seeing old friends, he greeted us, we loaded up the van and then made our way to our hotel for the next three nights. Since it was quite late, we called it a night in order to be up tomorrow to explore Shiraz!