Iran - The historic bazaar of Tabriz

With its 1.6 million inhabitants, Tabriz is a rather normal provincial capital. Although we have been travelling through Iran for hours, a glance at the map shows that we are still in the far north. From now on, we call it "kilometre whining".

On the first night, we are right in front of the big bazaar, which turns out not to be such a good idea. Nightly knocks and passport checks constantly wake us up. So the next day we drive to a campsite that is a little out of the way. It's actually just a closed car park with toilets and showers, but we don't use them. We find our own bathroom in the Felix hut cleaner.

Now to the bazaar. By the way, we differentiate between bazaars and markets: a market here is more like a supermarket, such as Edeka or Migros. Bazaars are real experiences consisting of many small and large stalls. We stroll through the aisles and are enchanted by the scents, colours and decorations.

The historic bazaar of Tabriz is one of the oldest and largest fully covered bazaars in the Middle East and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I'll start right away: absolutely rightly so!

In the 13th century, the complex experienced its first heyday and had an important position on the Silk Road. Whenever I realise that we are on part of the Silk Road, I feel an excited, exotic tingle inside me. We are really doing this, we are really in the Middle East, we are in Iran and we are on part of the Silk Road! That was one of our big dreams. To immerse ourselves in the Orient for once!

The bazaar is not only a trading centre, but also a cultural, religious and social hub. There are three libraries, five baths and 28 mosques within the bazaar. There used to be schools here too.

We let ourselves drift, stroll through the long, brick-walled arcades and can only marvel. It's packed, the stalls are overflowing and the visitors are crowded. And the best thing is that it is sensationally quiet. People stare at us again and again, but nobody tries to sell us anything. When we look at something at a stall, we are greeted with a friendly smile and, in the best cases, we are politely asked where we are from. We are allowed to take photos of everything. As so often in this country, we hear "Welcome to Iran" or "Thank you for visiting our country".

Of course we get lost in the corridors here, but that doesn't matter. "Turn left here?" "Yes, why not?" A little later, we turn right again into a small alleyway. The men push their fully loaded carts through the crowd and shout "Yallah, Yallah!" again and again to make room for each other. Every now and then a tea seller passes by or fresh tomatoes, cucumbers or warm bread (often stacked over the shoulder or the handlebars of a bicycle) are carried through the alleyways. The traders seem to rely on being supplied in this way.

For us, everything is simply fabulous, dreamlike, exotic and a great experience.

For breakfast, my husband took me to one of the really pretty cafés in one of the Sārās. These are large courtyards framed by one or two-storey buildings. We order a typical Persian breakfast, drink tea with saffron sugar and enjoy chatting with our neighbours and the two waitresses. We while away the time, savour the atmosphere and don't know what to do next.

So back into the action, which is not a hustle and bustle at all, but more like an organic flow. We learn that the prices in the market are actually much cheaper than in other shops in the city. But we don't care, as we don't need anything and don't want to buy anything.

In the end, we end up buying something small: a new purse for all the banknotes we need here. Neither Gerd's wallet nor any of the small purses we have with us are big enough for the millions. We find a pretty, colourful, oriental wallet with a zip for all our wealth. We have exchanged around 100 dollars and our 4.5 million riyals in cash don't really decrease with the prices here.

In the late afternoon, we sit in our Felix, eat dinner far too early and then quickly fall into bed, full of so many new impressions. I have to work tomorrow, which is good for both of us. A day without many impressions and just peace and quiet.

PS: Sorry for the many pictures. It's so difficult for us to choose here in Iran. And it's supposed to be our own memory diary. But we hope that the pictures will give you a good insight into our travelling world in addition to the stories.

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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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