Video Blog

Marty came a long way from the US to Iran via Turkey, because currently there are no direct flights to Tehran. He had a previous history of learning Farsi.

His first destination was Tehran, and Tehran’s different driving conditions, traffic and pollution caught his attention. He visited Golestan palace, although he was not really into museums, but he enjoyed it due to its surrounding garden and its relatively peaceful atmosphere unlike the busy part of downtown Tehran. His thoughts on public transportation such as the subway, is to avoid using it during rush hours, given that the subway cars are small comparing to his hometown.

He then took a 13- 14- hour- train ride to Shiraz, in order to see Takht- e- Jamshid (Persepolis), enjoyed the different and beautiful landscape on his way. First site he visited was Naqsh- e- Rostam, located in north of Shiraz and belongs to, as he puts it, “ways back BC”, with 4 tombs built in to the side of a cliff and an unknown really old building, which might have been a fire temple. It had been one of the oldest architectures he had seen. After that he visited the ruins of Persepolis (Takht- e- Jamshid), one of UNESCO’s world heritage sites which were discovered by the local people years ago. Cuneiform scripts which are the alphabet of Hittite old Persian and Babylonian languages and lots of inscriptions, fascinated him the most.

His outlook on food in Iran is positive, he describes food in Iran, as healthy, delicious and cheap, and he does think that Iranian people take their food very seriously. He visited Iran’s historical and authentic city of Shiraz. He got to visit, the tomb of Hafez and Saadi, with large numbers of visitors due to the importance of poetry in Persian culture. He took a train to come back to Tehran. And again took 2 flights to get back home.