A week to go.

Persia commonly known as Iran in the Western World, Persia home of the oldest continuous major civilization, Persia with its historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BCE,  here we come.

Well, after a year of talking and planning this trip, it has crept up on us and we are now in the final week before departure on the 20^th.  Each of us has commandeered a bed in the spare rooms and are laying out all the things needed for this adventure.  For Bernie, it is pretty much normal run of the mill stuff but for me, it is my Iranian wardrobe consisting of long tunic tops and an assortment of scarves.  The tunics must be long sleeved ones.  For those who know me well, you will know that I don’t wear a winter coat to walk all Winter, I don’t wear a hat, or a scarf or even gloves.  Nevertheless, this will be a great experience and I am sure I will feel richer and much warmer at the end of it all.  This will be my look for the duration of the trip.

We will be travelling with a small group of people mostly American, led by a knowledgeable Farsi speaking New Yorker who has lived in Iran during the time of the Shah, and travels there frequently. Our group will also consist of a guide and the driver of the minibus in which we will be travelling. In total perhaps a dozen people.

As part of our own travel, we decided to spend a few days in Istanbul to acclimatize ourselves to the new time zone and those dreaded early morning departures on the mini bus. As luck would have it, friends that we had met in India on an earlier trip Jorg and Maria will be returning from their own travel to Japan and have planned to meet us in Istanbul on their way home to Brussels.

We will be meeting our group on the 25th, though several of us will have met in Istanbul in the few days preceding our official start date in Tehran.  

Our first 3 days will be spent visiting the sites in Tehran. On day 4, we go to Shiraz, day 5 will be spent in Persopolis, Pasargrade and Yazd.  On Day 7 it is Nain and Esfahan.  On Day 10 we head to Kashan, Abayneh and return to Tehran that day. Day 11 puts us on an early morning flight to Tabriz in the North.   On Day 12, we travel to Kandovan, Ardebil and Sarein.  Day 13 takes us to Anzali and Rasht on the shores of the Caspian Sea.  Finally on Day 14 we return to Tehran via Masouleh and a day later, on May 10 the adventure is over and we return home. It sounds like a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short time and we have had our own misgivings, but will let you how it goes each day. There is no way to know in advance the quality of internet access we will have, though for the most part we will be staying in 5 star hotels. We will have to wait and see. Stay tuned.