Travel Diary Iran 2013 - Day 8 (Esfahan)

After the breakfast we went out to the town center and to our first destination the beautiful Chehel Sotoon Palace and its garden, which is one the 9 gardens that together form the Unicef World Heritage "Persian Garden", see the UNICEF's description here http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1372/.

The Palace and its garden was built in the first half of seventeenth century during the Shah Abbas II of the Safavid dyansty.

There are three panoramas of this palace the garden, the iwan (verandah) and the audience hall of the palace in the Esfahan Gallery at http://stockholm360.net/list.php?id=esfahan

After that we headed to the grand bazaar of Esfahan, a historical market in Isfahan, Iran, one of the oldest and largest bazaars in the Middle East, dating back to the 17th century. Here you can find all kind of handmade pieces of arts from a variety of material, carpets, copper ware, sliver ware, woodwork, paintings, painted vases, dishes etc and many many other things.

 There are two panoramas from two shops/workshops with artisans working in the Esfahan gallery http://stockholm360.net/list.php?id=esfahan; one from a fine copper workers and another from a group of artists painting on the vases.

In the bazaar we also visited the Friday Mosque (Masjed-e Jom-eh) , which is the largest one in Esfahan too. This is a mosque from the Great Sljuk era, when Esfahan was the capital of Persia for the first time around 1050 AC.

In the evening we visited the Naqshe Jahan Square, a magnificent and beautiful square, which is another Unicef World Heritage site of Esfahan. This square and all its surrounding including the monumental buildings were built during the Safavid era, when Esfahan became the capital of Persia for the second time around 1600 AC.

 It was pleasant to just sit there and enjoy the nice weather and the calm of the square and its beauty under the moon.