Salmiya

A couple of months ago, a friend sent me a picture of the Zayandeh Rud in Esfahan which had more or less vanished at that time. A dam west of the city had been closed in the summer because of the severe drought in recent years. The water, which in any case evaporates in the desert in the Batlaq-e Gaykhunia, a huge marsh area about one hundred kilometers east of Esfahan, was urgently needed for agriculture. When I visited Esfahan in December, the riverbed was filled again, even though not to levels I had seen before. The bridges over the river are world-famous. The river banks are carefully gardened, beautiful parks in the tradition of Persian Paradise gardens. They invite to stroll, rest, meet other people, let the children play, have a picnic. In fact, you may see married and even unmarried couples (although, you'll never know). It is a six kilometers walk from Marnan Bridge in the west to Sharestan Bridge in the east, but when the weather is fine, a very pleasant trip. ...

Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine...