3100 km on the Roads of Iran

I have just come back enthusiastic from a trip to Iran. It was without doubt the most beautiful, varied and full of the organised trips I have taken. Generally I travel with my partner and a couple of friends with whom we are very close and we don't much like group trips because we take our time to savour things and a group generally doesn't allow that much.

I saw a very beautiful land and very varied landscapes: deserts framed by snowy peaks, neatly cultivated fields and fruit trees with their first buds; I saw the magnificence of Persepolis and its bas-reliefs, the tomb of Cyrus and the rock-cut ones of Naqsh-e Rostam, the splendid symmetry of the square in Esfahan and the riot of ceramics covering the mosques and the palaces, and among all this a sea of other things: towers of silence and Zoroastrian fire temples and the Jameh mosques whose plan echoes that of the ancient fire temples on which they were built, the citadel of Rayen, the tombs of the poets and the devotion shown to them even in such prosaic times; all these things you find in any guidebook, what you don't find there, however, is the people who come up to you driven by sincere curiosity about "the different" and to ask you what you think of them and their land, thoughts not e

asy to express in my approximate English: it is the first time I have not felt treated like a bag of dollars with legs!!! People of all kinds and all ages, schoolgirls, little families … who offer you tea or crisps from the bag they have just opened. I must say, however, that it was a somewhat particular organised trip, since we did not rely on an Italian tour operator but, after a search on the internet, on a kind, competent and enthusiastic-about-her-land Iranian guide, the priceless Soheila (viaggioiniran.com) who did everything possible to make us appreciate her country, to show us as much as possible of it amid mysterious surprises and copious and irresistible trays of local sweets.

I repeat, I don't have much experience of organised trips, but I think I have enough competence to declare that a good guide makes a good trip! Thank you for your attentions, your enthusiasm and competence and… unfortunately also for the two kilos I found on my hips.