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Published: April 27th 2007
Chehel Sotun
OMG!!! Squinches!!! Quite different from those Turkish pendentives i've seen before...oh and theyre colorful! The night we arrived in Esfahan, I prayed to any deity who would listen, to give us clear blue skies during our visit to Naqsh-Jahan Square in exchange for cutting down on cigarettes, booze (well that wasnt volountary) and the life of my ipod. Whoever it was, it worked.
Our day exploring Isfahan was sunny as ever, the sky mimicking the colour of the beautiful blue domes and tiles. At last, I would be able to accomplish 2 points on my 'things to do before I expire' list:
-Task#5: Moonwalk along at least half of the huge Square, to 'Billie Jean'. Yeoowww
-Task#6: Sing Evita's 'Don't cry for me Argentina' - but for Naqsh-Jahan, from the balcony at Ali Capu palace.
(luckily I dont have any photographic evidence for myself because I was so into it. I scored some free gifts from a bazaar vendor nearby though. hurrah!)
VANK CATHEDRAL - begun in 1606, one of the 13 Armenian Orthodox churches in the city. A little peculiar, as its external appearance resembles a mosque, but its internal decorations are full of Christian frescoes and colored tiles like those from mosques. The Armenian peoples had been oppressed
Vank Cathedral
Checking out the Christian 'burbs of Esfahan by the Ottoman Turks, and hence the Safavid Shah Abbas moved them from their Azerbaijan home to the suburb of Jolfa back in the 1600s. As the Safavids were fighting the Ottomans, they thought the addition of Armenian troops would be rather clever.
Would have loved to take more pics of the frescoes, reminded me of the monasteries in Meteora (Greece) but no photography was allowed. Gah!
The museum featured artworks ranging from the world's smallest Koran (the size of a bloody box of matches!) to gory photos of decapitated Armenians...
PIGEON TOWER - there used to be heaps of these back in the day, giant towers for pigeons to...shit on. the droppings were collected for fertilizer, and were designed specifically so that no predator birds or snakes could enter the pigeon haven. Still a ridiculous bunch of pigeons congregate there today, and as soon as I looked up when i entered the tower, I took a pic and ran for my life. Well, who wouldnt?
CHEHEL SOTUN - the palace of 40 (magical number) pillars! Well, they cheated a little. the structure, surrounded by a pretty garden of lovely vegetation and fountains, only
Vank Cathedral
a pretty peaceful area... has 20 columns. but since there's a reflecting pool in front of it, there's a total of 40 on a sunny day. '40' is a symbol of bounty. So Iranian men are proud to state their ages, while all women happen to stop ageing at 39...
The interior walls were decorated with beautiful paintings of royal scenes and battles. Especially of the Napoleon-equivalent, King Nadhir. There was also a portrait of the Shiites establishing their branch of Islam.
Portraits of supposedly gorgeous-looking young men and women were amusing - pale skin, plump faces and sexy monobrows. The monobrow-look though, i must admit, was still very much 'in' in Iranian society...
On the bus, I was reading a copy of 'Not Without my Daughter' that a cautious japanese friend of mine rammed into my bag. (scream) i'm sorry, this aint my cuppa, but i suppose i have much reading time during bus journeys....with my dying ipod.
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