At 7, i got my bike from the garage, then had breakfast. This time, one Dutch greeted, and you could interpret his face as smiling, the Chinese lady greeted and smiled, too. After breakfast, the Chinese and I talked for a few minutes. She stays in Iran for 3 weeks and also will go to Shiraz. Then Mashad and then Tabriz. She went on to continue sightseeing Isfahan and so did I to “make” the rest of my tourist-in-Isfahan-to-do-list.
First was one of those bridges, I chose the Syo Se bridge, as it was nearest to my route but maybe it is not the most iconic and at night it would have been very attractive. I would say that the river looked bluer at the map.
Then I came to Vank church. It is in the Armenian quarter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Julfa)
and in the same area you find a genocide memorial
and a museum.
There is a list of helpful people that also brings Franz Werfel, but he is a Czech there.
In the museum I found two things that are surprising (to me not so much anymore, as on this trip I had experienced similar things):
The genocide is clearly documented, and Turkey declared responsible.
Given the fact that Iran has a big “Turkish” province (Azerbaijan) and Turkey is an important neighbour that is no matter of course. And in the museum, you can e.g. see a painting of the crucifixion of Jesus (and this title).
For Muslims Jesus not only cannot be son of God or part of trinity as there is only one god, Jesus, as a Prophet, could not have been killed
(https://www.ojc.de/salzkorn/2005/islam-christentum/kreuzigung-jesus-koran/)
But in the Islamic state Iran, you find a well preserved Christian Church and a museum with such things.
Armenians had been in Iran since long, 400y ago many thousands had been deported and since that time settle in Isfahan. For me, it remains unexplained why these people after such a long time still have their own language and belief. Didn’t they want to integrate or was there integration unwelcomed or both?
Armenian beauty
I don’t know who had turned on my camera while I was in the museum, but now I have an interesting video where you can also here the difference of Iranian Armenian language to Armenian. (Upload to youtube in November)
The last sight was the Pigeon Tower. On top I met 3 Germans who also will go to Shiraz in the next days.
And then, around 10, I left Isfahan to Shareza. It was only 80km,
on the way to Arak, you could also get pomegranate juice – on the way to Shahreza they only sold fruits
so it was ok to start late and around 15h, I arrived. School was over, and young guys on bikes and motorcycles had fun to accompany me and making comments that I luckily didn’t understand.
For the first time, also girls on the street made comments or said hello, what had not happened so far, but here more than once. One girl offered help to find my hostel and I don’t even know why she knew that I was looking for it.
In the evening internet on my phone stopped working (there was no Wifi) and as I was communicating with Nader who helped me finding accommodations and with his friend Arash in Shiraz who wanted to plan my stay, I tried to fix that problem.
A man showed me the way to Irancell and with the help of five people from there and a man from a neighbouring shop who could communicate in English I got a fresh data package.