We have understood it: Iranians sleep late. Much longer than we do. And the good thing about it: we are almost always alone at the tourist sites. When we arrive at the gates at 8 or half past 8, we are greeted in a friendly manner and the entire ancient city is left to us. As a private city, so to speak.
After paying the obligatory entrance fee of one million per person, we climb the flat steps. It is said that the steps were so flat so that people could be carried on horses (or camels?) into the royal seat of the first Persian empire.
So we climb up, as all envoys once did, first through the "Gate of All Nations". Then we reach the centrepiece of the residence, the royal palace. We cross the 100-pillar hall, climb up to the rock tomb and back down to the queen's quarters. The city rises high above the plain, and even then the aim was for the king's residence to be seen and (perhaps even admired?) from afar.
Of course, the halls, palaces and so on can only be recognised in fragments, but pictures and a documentary we saw earlier give us an idea of what it must have looked like. We imagine that they must have been huge halls with beautiful wooden roofs. Oh, marvellous.
We learn that the Persian rulers, unlike many others in the world, paid their construction workers, as evidenced by "receipts" on clay tablets.
Unfortunately, Alexander the Great was the bringer of misfortune. After his conquest, the city went up in flames. We will probably never know whether he ordered the fire or whether it was just an accident. In any case, the city perished with him and with it its beauty. However, the fire burnt a lot of clay tablets, on which all kinds of accounts were carved, forever and gave us a good insight into ancient bookkeeping. At least something.
We enjoy the first few hours in complete peace and quiet, later the coaches pull into the huge car park and the visitors stream towards us. We round off the "old stones" morning with a cosy coffee and ponder our own plans. What now? Half of our Iran visa is up. What next? The Arabian Peninsula? Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman? Or back to the north? The sea would also be nice: Persian Gulf?
Not so easy. Some call it a luxury problem, we call it travel organisation. We weigh up each other's thoughts, worries and wishes. And we decide. The decisions we make actually feel really good!
So let's set off on new discoveries. Where to? We'll keep you posted.
Tip: A great documentary about Persepolis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkibMPxSnV0
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
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