When you think about the stories of 1001 Arabian Nights.., what do you think of?
Dreamy palaces, bustling bazaars, tinkling fountains, magical mosaic-ed mosques, brass lanterns, flying carpet rides…. right? And so what did I find in Esfahan? Pretty much ALL of that, and more…
I’ll be honest and say that I actually haven’t done much research at all on this most amazing of cities, which is really unlike me.. but it had long been on Eric‘s dream bucket list to visit the city and now I can see why. So if my eyes were aching after taking in all of the beauty of the Pink Mosque in Shiraz, here I was about to go blind…
In the centre of the city lies the gigantic Naqsh-e Jahan Square. When we think big, it’s been estimated to be three times the size of St Mark’s Square big… so Venice, eat your heart out! And when we say enormous, we’re talking like 500m x 160m enormous. And best of all for a butterfly like me, there are shops running around all the 1,320m circumference of it!!!
And they actually call it a bazaar in this part of the world, which just makes it even more magical.
But this is not even the half of it… for the square is bound on each side by two mahoosive magical tiled mosques and that dreamy palace I was talking about earlier. Let’s start there…
So the absolutely gorgeous Aali Qapu Palace was built back in the 17th century by the Safavid shahs, not actually as a palace but as more of a viewing deck for the Shah, so that he and his entourage could view parades and celebrations in the maydan (that giant square) below. And boy was it a) dreamy and b) totally the perfect place to check out all the action below… what a view! I’ll just give you a moment to soak up all this majesty…
The keen eyed amongst you will have perhaps noticed that it is this dreamy, soothing palette that has inspired the colours we have used right here on this site… and will no doubt be seen in many more of my creative pursuits to come!!
Directly opposite the palace proudly sits the Sheikh Lofolla Mosque, a delectable confection of peach and jade green… who knew that combo would work so well? I certainly didn’t! They believe it was the mosque for the women of the royal harem... lucky them!
But the big daddy of the square is unbelievable Masjed-e Imam… nothing had prepared me for this bad boy. An absolute behemoth of a mosque complex which takes blue to another level…
Work was started here in 1612 by Shah Abbas I in memory of an ancestor and is a combination of both mosaic and majolica tilework. A combination because at some stage Abbas grew frustrated at the how long his project was taking that he demanded that the painstakingly labour intensive mosaic work which we can see at the entrance portal be replaced by the much more efficient and faster use of painted tiles. Didn’t matter much in the end as the complex was finally finished 10 years after his death. But what a legacy he has left!
Regardless of the history, it was hard not to feel completely overwhelmed within the first minute we stepped foot into this vast complex. And even more so when you realise that you are the only ones here!! The rest of the story is best left to the pictures we took… which sadly got not do a scrap of justice to the majesty of this place, especially in the harsh glare of the midday sun, but just indulge me here…
One of the many things you marvel at is the exceptional architectural & mathematical genius of these Safavids… one particular example of this is the exceptional acoustics of this place. Back in the day before microphones and loudspeakers, imams and their contemporaries around the world would have had to rely on the projection of their own voices to share the good words with up to 10,000 worshippers assembled in the courtyard... However, take a moment to find the central floor slab, clap, and listen… and marvel at the ingenuity of these guys…
It sounded like gunfire from across the maydan, right? Incredible.
By about now, it was so overwhelming and I was almost brought to tears with the beauty of it all… while someone else was wilting from sensory overload, and the other from hanger, and so it was time to beat a retreat and the heat, and go and find somewhere cool and relaxing to revive our weary minds and hearts.. oh and our eyes
To be fair, there’s not much more I can say about this magical place. I think we have ticked off the dreamy palace, the bustling bazaar and magical mosaic-ed mosques, and there were definitely many, many tinkling fountains right out there in the maydan. We’d discovered brass lanterns, thankfully not too many flying carpets…
But the last word of the day has to be left to these crazy, friendly guys… one of which was indeed from a long lineage of flying carpet salesmen… we chatted and joked and traded dad jokes, and in one last spectacular humurous effort... he nearly almost had us...
Estfahan… you we are all going to have to crawl into a cool, dark room to recover from your sheer magnificience, and while we're there, can I please have my eyes back!
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