After our quick tour of Abyaneh we were dropped off at a bus stand and took a shared taxi to Isfahan.  An hour and a half later we fin...

Isfahan

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After our quick tour of Abyaneh we were dropped off at a bus stand and took a shared taxi to Isfahan.  An hour and a half later we finally reached Isfahan! Our taxi driver insisted to drop us off at the taxi stand but we actually got off at the bus station and caught a bus close to the center of the city. It is really funny to see how people push the taxis for the tourists even when we say we want to use the bus.

We entered the bus and of course everybody was staring at the two foreigners carrying backpacks! People were kind and asked for us to sit down.


There was heavy traffic in Isfahan and since we didn’t have any accomodation booked we decided to get off at a random place and go look for food. We started walking and immediately noticed how so many people approached us just to say hello and many others to see if we needed any help. At one point 3 girls came over and said “Hello, Welcome to Iran” and asked if we needed any help and we actually said yes and told them we wanted to eat. We told them I was vegetarian, that we didn’t want fast food, that we wanted Iranian food. We started walking and they took us to a hotel that had food but we didn’t want to eat at a hotel, we wanted to eat what they eat on the street!

At the end they said we could go and eat and sleep at their house so we said ok. Lots of Iranian talking going on and we then found out that their house was 40km away from where we were and the mom didn’t seem so convinced so we decided not to go, said thank you and went back to the main street on our search for food. 


As we walked I was amazed by the high number of people saying hello to us, a group of guys said “hello, where are you from?” and Richard said “germany” and one of the guys came running to us. It turned out that this random Iranian guy could speak German and we ended up standing there for about half an hour talking to them (well, I can’t speak German or Farsi so I stood there, doing nothing other than eating the Mexican corn they bought for me!)
Finally after standing in the cold for a while we made a move and stopped at a fast food restaurant for Richard to eat. While we were seating people kept saying hello, and a guy from a table had bought a 2liter bottle of a white drink and he served me a cup and put it in front of me. The drink was somehow disgusting so I made sure I shared it with Richard who actually could drink it without it coming back! 
It is funny to see how many people look at me and say “How do you say Hello in Chine?” (meaning Chinese!) I can’t believe that even people in Iran think I might be Chinese!

We spent the night at a basic hostel and the next day we set to explore. 

The Iranian guy who spoke German came to our hostel and joined us on the hike of Sotel mountain. Richard is a nature lover so of course we would go hiking!
When we arrived to the bottom of the hill the mountain looked gigantic (to me) and I hoped in silence that I wouldn’t collapse half way! haha


The beginning of the path was all paved and easy to walk. After an hour+ we finally reached “the top” and stopped to take in the view. In the 20 minutes that we were resting and taking in the views a local guy came and started talking to us. It turned out that he could speak french so we had a 10-15 minute conversation about Iran, the culture, my thoughts about the hijab and what not. It felt so good to use my french and know that I can still have full on conversations! 


How crazy is this view?



 The guy said that it was possible to keep hiking up the mountain so Richard asked our oppinion and we agreed to continued. The route looked hard, it had ropes around the rock to help us go up.


 I was a little skeptical and a little scared about the hike but powered through and I am so glad I did! The view was unbelievable! I did not know that Isfahan was that big! I was in awe at the beauty of this place!!!!




After 5 hours of hiking we finally made it back down the mountain and headed back to the hostel where we got our bags and took a bus to our new host’s house.

 On our way we stopped by a mosque with some funny testimonials of women wearing a hijab.
In order to get to our host’s house we had to transfer to a taxi and the experience was just hilarious! Many taxi drivers came to us and we were the attraction of the moment! When we got in our taxi at least 10 other taxi drivers came near the taxi to see us go! haha

We finally arrived to Javad’s, our host, house and it was so cool to learn about him and his family! His dad is a carpet dealer and his mother used to be a carpet making teacher. While I was there I was able to see his mother work on a carpet she will gift her other son for his wedding. My mouth literally dropped at the sight of this woman making a carpet and I sat on the floor in front of her just to admire her work. I think Javad found this a little funny (and maybe even ridiculous) but seriously it was… awesome! 


 We then sat around the living room with his family and mom brought a platter with oranges, apples, and cucumbers to share with us. We had dinner at the Armenian quarter and ended the night at one of the beautiful bridges of Isfahan.






 On thursday night we sat around the TV with Javad and his family and watched “stage”, the Iranian Americal Idol! haha

Our last day in Isfahan was the celebration of revolution day and it was a little crazy! We didn’t wake up to go to the celebration but saw it on tv and it seemed very busy. At around noon Richard and I took a bus to the square and saw thousands of people leaving the celebration. People were wearing flags, facepaint, and were carrying signs that said “Down with the U.S.A, down with the U.K, down with Israel.” I was very impressed by the number of people who came to celebrate such day.

Love the little girl with the flag.




Since we had just woken up we were in need of breakfast, and what better than asche?! Yum!

We then strolled around the Naqsh-e Jahan square and there were a lot of people having picnics and hanging out.
Just picnicin'



Praying time

After a stroll around the square we visited the Shah Mosque. In the square there are actually 2 mosques and I had a hard time deciding which one to go to but at the end we decided that for the same price we would pick the biggest one.
After paying the 200,000 rials entrance fee to Shah mosque we entered it and I was in awe of what I was seeing. In front of me was pretty much what you think Iran looks like.

I didn’t even know where to begin! The mosque was so beautiful it was hard for me not to run around from place to place with my eyes wide open! The tile mosaic in blue tones looked so beautiful!

 ...And I took way too many pictures!







The guy in the middle was singing, the echo 

How pretty?




After some time in the mosque we walked out to the square and we quickly walked through the bazaar that was mostly closed.





We walked around town and found some very muslim signs.
Our walk ended by the famous 33 bridges. Isfahan has a river that goes through the city but around 10 months out of the year the river is dried but we were so lucky to come to Iran during the time that it has water. Irani people love to take a walk along the river and do picnic! Javad told us that Iranians are kings of picnics, they have them everywhere! I even saw some people having a picnic while smoking shisha! haha





As always, struggling with the hijab!



That night Javad came to pick us up and took us to a great tea house!!!



The next day we left Isfahan to go to the desert in Varzaneh.



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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com