The drive took a little over an hour. During the ride, our guide (a really cool woman!) told us a lot about life in Iran from a women's perspective:
- The younger generation can't stand the head scarf and dark-clothing requirements
- Many of them are highly educated. I think since there aren't that many job opportunities for women, they stay in school
- They wear a lot of make up (I mean A LOT) because that's the only part of their bodies that they are allowed to display in public. Apparently, some girls even get refused entry into the mosques due to heavy makeup
- Like anywhere else, women are marrying at a later age
...among others.
We
spent about 2 hours wandering through the ruins. I was quite surprised by its remoteness and quietness. Persepolis being what it is, I expected hordes of tourists. But nope! We basically had the whole place to ourselves, which was quite nice : )
Most of the columns have fallen down, so it was difficult to picture what the complex must've looked like back then. The whole area was a bit smaller than what I had expected as well. Nevertheless, Persepolis was absolutely spectacular!!! The friezes were, without a doubt, my favorite. Like this one, where the soldiers actually look like they are marching (It was off-limits, but the guide managed to get us in):
And this one. Obviously, it's good luck to touch the lion's (?) face: 
Next stop was the Naqsh-e-Rustam. When we got there, the guide paid for our admission again. I was totally fine with that; who wouldn't be, right?! Well, the Swiss girl – the good, honest tourist. She proceeded to make the guide aware that our contract said "admission not included." OK, the whole thing is less than $1, but if you can get away without paying, why not??? Or am I evil in doing so???
Anyways, there are several tombs of Achaemenid kings carved into the cliffs here. You can't go into the tombs itself, but the relief sculptures below them were cool. Interesting how the tomb entrances were carved out in the shape of a cross...
One of the main reasons why we decided to hire a car was so that we could visit Pasargadae, another UNESCO World Heritage site located 30-40 minutes from Persepolis. If anyone else is even remotely thinking about doing the same, DON'T!!! It would be a complete waste of time. Everything is just too ruined to be enjoyable. The only structure that was semi-intact was the tomb of Cyrus the Great (supposedly), but even that remained mostly hidden by an external pole framework around it, due to the ongoing renovation. Basically, the one picture of the site in my guide book was way better than anything we saw. Quite a disappointment.
With the sightseeing done, we headed to a traditional Iranian lunch. Yummy meat + vegetable stew, rice, and yogurt. Mmmmm.
I'm sure you're all wondering what I had to dress like in Iran, so here it is. The three tourists at lunch:
From there, we (just the French guy and myself) got dropped off at a police station on the highway. Not because we were going to be arrested for our attempt to get away from paying those entrance fees. But because we wanted to catch the bus to Yazd. All long distance buses are required to stop and report at these police posts, so it's a convenient place to catch one of them.
We already had a ticket (bought in advance last night), but our seats were taken when we boarded more than an hour behind schedule. Go figure. But since we were rare tourists (that's my logic, at least), they moved everyone around to accommodate us.
We
spent about 2 hours wandering through the ruins. I was quite surprised by its remoteness and quietness. Persepolis being what it is, I expected hordes of tourists. But nope! We basically had the whole place to ourselves, which was quite nice : )Most of the columns have fallen down, so it was difficult to picture what the complex must've looked like back then. The whole area was a bit smaller than what I had expected as well. Nevertheless, Persepolis was absolutely spectacular!!! The friezes were, without a doubt, my favorite. Like this one, where the soldiers actually look like they are marching (It was off-limits, but the guide managed to get us in):
And this one. Obviously, it's good luck to touch the lion's (?) face: Next stop was the Naqsh-e-Rustam. When we got there, the guide paid for our admission again. I was totally fine with that; who wouldn't be, right?! Well, the Swiss girl – the good, honest tourist. She proceeded to make the guide aware that our contract said "admission not included." OK, the whole thing is less than $1, but if you can get away without paying, why not??? Or am I evil in doing so???Anyways, there are several tombs of Achaemenid kings carved into the cliffs here. You can't go into the tombs itself, but the relief sculptures below them were cool. Interesting how the tomb entrances were carved out in the shape of a cross...
One of the main reasons why we decided to hire a car was so that we could visit Pasargadae, another UNESCO World Heritage site located 30-40 minutes from Persepolis. If anyone else is even remotely thinking about doing the same, DON'T!!! It would be a complete waste of time. Everything is just too ruined to be enjoyable. The only structure that was semi-intact was the tomb of Cyrus the Great (supposedly), but even that remained mostly hidden by an external pole framework around it, due to the ongoing renovation. Basically, the one picture of the site in my guide book was way better than anything we saw. Quite a disappointment.With the sightseeing done, we headed to a traditional Iranian lunch. Yummy meat + vegetable stew, rice, and yogurt. Mmmmm.
I'm sure you're all wondering what I had to dress like in Iran, so here it is. The three tourists at lunch:
From there, we (just the French guy and myself) got dropped off at a police station on the highway. Not because we were going to be arrested for our attempt to get away from paying those entrance fees. But because we wanted to catch the bus to Yazd. All long distance buses are required to stop and report at these police posts, so it's a convenient place to catch one of them.We already had a ticket (bought in advance last night), but our seats were taken when we boarded more than an hour behind schedule. Go figure. But since we were rare tourists (that's my logic, at least), they moved everyone around to accommodate us.
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