Iran - Andrew Burke [188]
Azade Kazemi ( 0913 327 9626; azadekazemi@hotmail.com) Highly knowledgeable Spanish- and English-speaking guide.
Esfahan Tourist Guides Association (Map; 221 3840, 221 6831; Imam Sq) Based at the tourist information office; has 150 guides speaking English, Spanish, Arabic, French and German. Guides can lead a variety of trips; contact them a day ahead if you want anything more than a local day trip. Full day’s guiding costs IR210,000.
Maryam Shafiei ( 0913 326 6127; marie13572002@yahoo.fr) French- and English-speaking guide with a good reputation; Esfahan and beyond from €20 a day.
TRAVEL AGENCIES
Iran Travel & Tourism Tour (Map; 222 3010; irantravel1964@yahoo.com; Shahid Medani St) Opposite Abbasi Hotel; efficient English-speaking staff book plane, train and even ferry tickets. Car hire and local tours can be arranged (per day with driver and guide IR280,000).
VISA EXTENSIONS
Department of Aliens Affairs (Map; English-speaking officers at Tourist Police 221 5953; Rudaki St; 7am-1.30pm Sat-Wed, 7am-noon Thu) Esfahan is not the express extension it once was. The Department of Aliens Affairs is in a large, drab-looking government building. Show your passport at the gate, pick up the paperwork at the office in the courtyard and follow pointed fingers from there. It normally takes three days, but several travellers have reported getting same-day service if they arrived by 8am and showed a pre-booked plane/bus ticket. To get here, walk or take a shuttle taxi 1.7km south from the southern end of Si-o-Seh Bridge (IR700) to Shariati St, then take another shuttle taxi (IR1500) 3km west. The building is about 400m after the third major intersection and a slight bend right and left, on the right (north) side of the road. Alternatively, get the Tourist Police on Chahar Bagh Abbasi St to help – they can put you on a bus that stops outside the office or give a taxi directions; very helpful! For more on extending visas, see ‘More Time, Please’ Click here.
Sights
These sights are listed roughly north to south.
Jameh Mosque
The Jameh Mosque (Masjed-e Jameh; Map; Allameh Majlesi St; admission IR5000; 8-11am & 1-5pm) is a veritable museum of Islamic architecture and still a working mosque. Within a couple of hours you can see and compare 800 years of Islamic design, with each example near to the pinnacle of its age. The range is quite stunning: from the geometric elegance of the Seljuks, through to the Mongol period and on to the refinements of the more baroque Safavid style. At more than 20,000 sq metres, it is also the biggest mosque in Iran.
Religious activity on this site is believed to date back to the Sassanid Zoroastrians, and the first sizable mosque was built by the Seljuks in the 11th century. Of this, the two large domes above the north and south iwans (rectangular halls opening onto a courtyard) have survived intact, with most of the remainder destroyed by fire in the 12th century. The mosque was rebuilt in 1121, with later rulers making their own enhancements.
In the centre of the main courtyard, which is surrounded by four contrasting iwans, is an attractive ablutions fountain designed to imitate the Kaaba at Mecca; would-be haji pilgrims would use it to practise the appropriate rituals. The two-storey porches around the courtyard’s perimeter were constructed in the late 15th century.
The south iwan is the most elaborate, with Mongol-era stalactite mouldings, some splendid 15th-century mosaics on the side walls, and two minarets. The north iwan has a wonderful monumental porch with the Seljuk’s customary Kufic inscriptions and austere brick pillars in the sanctuary.
The west iwan was originally built by the Seljuks but later decorated by the Safavids. It has mosaics that are more geometric than those of the southern hall. The