"Isfahan is Half the World"

The basement in the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque located on the magnificent Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan. Built as a private mosque for the royal family and consequently closed to the public for centuries.  It is a beautiful structure and is described by Robert Byron (the travel writer - not the poet) in words, "I have never encountered splendour of this kind before".  And further " .. . each part of the design, each plane, each repetition, each separate branch or blossom has its own sombre beauty .. a richness of light and surface, of pattern and colour only."   See the extras.  Byron wrote an account of a journey he made through Persia in 1933-4 inThe Road to Oxiana.


The Square itself was built by Shah Abbas during the Safavid era in the 1600s.  Popular at all times and especially during events like Nowruz this week.  There was a great atmosphere with people promenading, picnicking, shopping or riding the horse carriages that circle the square continuously. As everywhere in Iran, the people are friendly and engaging.
Isfahan earned the moniker "Isfahan nesf-e jahan" (“Isfahan is half the world”) because of the city's significant presence in its world in the 16th century; due, I am sure, in no small part to the sheer magnificence of Naqsh-e Jahan Square.

More text to come later.  The extras include a wider shot of the Square (taken from the balcony of the Ali Qapu Palace), a shot over the crowds in the square, and two shots inside the equally beautiful Shah Mosque, two of the dome and walls in the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, and finally one of the restaurant we stopped at on the 7-hour bus ride from Shiraz earlier in the day *(more text on that later too). I could easily post another 40 images but my extras have unfortunately run out.