The first place which I visited in Kashan was Abbasian house which is a large historical house built in 18th century. I went there together with Mehdi before his depature to Tehran on Sunday 16th April. In the evening I walked in the bazaar alone and I was offered a tea. The following day my host Mohammad was busy and I visited Kashan by myself. There are many beautiful places as you can see below.
I was followed by two small children in the Shahzadeh-ye Ibrahim shrine. It was obligatory to wear a chador there and it was provided at the entrance. The children asked me for money and they took a photo of me in return.

Then I went to visit Sultan Mir Ahmad hammam which is a traditional public bathhouse.

Here you can see the rooftop of Sultan Mir Ahmad hamman.

 Tabatabei house which was built in 1880's.

Inside the Borujerdi house.

In the afternoon at 3pm I went on a desert trip. We stopped on our way at the adobe castle in Nooshabad. It was scary to walk on the narrow path on the top. Afterwards we visited a water cistern.

 Imamzadeh Helal-ebne Ali Shrine in Aran is an astonishing place. The chador was obligatory there.

 In front of this mosque there are graves of martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war.

After visiting the mosque we finally went to a desert. We saw a camel there with her baby. You can see a video of them here.

Then we went to the Namak lake which means salt lake. It is very shallow.

We made it just on time to see a sunset in a desert. We climbed a big sand dune and watched it from there.

Afterwards we waited until the dinner was prepared. There were tents for the people who were going to spend a night in the desert, we sat outside and we talked about our trips. There was nobody around so it was safe to remove a headscarf. We were served rice, chicken and eggplant. We returned to Kashan late in the evening. I had a long conversation with Mohammad who insisted to make me a massage and we went to sleep very late. I left Kashan on 18th April in the morning and continued travelling to Abyaneh and Isfahan.

My second day in Iran was Saturday 15th April. It was still foggy but warm, around 26°C. We went to a mosque in Tehran and I was allowed to enter it without wearing a chador. I met a Japanese woman there who wore a very interesting dress. People asked her to take a photo with her and I couldn't resist as well.

Mehdi bought me Faloodeh shirazi which is a dessert consisting of rose water with sugar and thin vermicelli noodles made from corn starch, but I didn't like it so he had to finish it by himself. On the other hand, I really liked khakshir made of golab with tiny brown seeds and another golab drink with basil seeds and I drank it every time there was an opportunity.

Then we went to the Golestan palace which is one of the oldest historical monuments in Tehran. There are gardens, royal buildings and collections of Iranian crafts and European presents. The most amazing place is the Mirror hall. 

I had to change money therefore Mehdi took me to a bazaar where they were selling gold. Iranian people express the prices in a very confusing way for a stranger because the prices are in rial but people say prices in toman (10 rial = 1 toman). I usually had to investigate whether the price was correct or they meant 10 times more.

My wish was to visit the Azadi tower (also Freedom tower) and we started heading there in the afternoon. We entered the subway station and while Mehdi was buying tickets I was standing in the line behind him which wasn't a good idea because some guys were pushing their bodies against mine and started touching me. Some of them tried to follow us even to the train car but I was careful enough not to get them close to me. I told to Mehdi what happened and we laughed it off. In Tehran there are also women-only cars where men are not allowed to go, but I think that these guys wouldn't dare touching an Iranian woman even if she travelled with them. 

We got to the Azadi tower which was quite far from the city center and I found out that this tower was rather small and not as interesting as on the photos. We took some photos and we walked there in the park until we decided that we were hungry because it was already around 6pm and we found a local restaurant at a bus station. We ordered Dizi (also called Abgoosht) which is made of lamb and chickpeas. The broth is placed in a large bowl and eaten with bread, while other ingredients including fat are all mashed up together using a meat masher and served with onions, pickles, herbs and yoghurt. I like this food but it is quite heavy and you will feel full soon.

Another dish that we ordered was Khoresh Gheymeh which consisted of rice, lamb, chickpeas and potatoes. It was also tasty but I preferred Dizi. 

We returned home because it was getting late but then I wanted to go for a walk and we went to the same park as the evening before. There was fitness equipment and I did a little exercise while Mehdi recorded a video of us. 

On Sunday morning Tehran was cold and rainy. The temperature was only 15°C. I decided that I had already seen the most important places in Tehran and it was better to leave to Kashan the same day. We stopped at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery to visit the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan who was killed during the protests in 2009. I bought flowers and I put them on her grave. My friend asked me if I wanted to pray but I told him that I wouldn't find it appropriate to say a Catholic prayer at a Muslim cemetery and we left. We travelled south to the Qom city and the landscape was a desert but there were also mountains and we had a view on the salt lake. We stopped and took photos and we continued travelling to Qom. 

Qom is in the middle of desert and it was quite hot when we got there. It is a holy city and a big majority of women wear a chador while men also wore traditional clothing with turban. We walked in the city center and we saw a mosque, a tomb and also a bazaar. After visiting Qom we travelled to Kashan where I had my host Mohammad, but we couldn't reach him at first and we went to visit a traditional house. Finally Mohammad came and took us to his home, but it was getting late and Mehdi left after drinking one tea. I went out with my host, we bought kebab for dinner and we ate it at home.

It all started when my friend Kynsley asked me an innocent question in March: "Would you be interested in visiting Iran, Georgia and Armenia next month?" I replied that I would be surely interested as I had been planning to visit Iran since a long time and I had no job anymore so I was free to travel again. However, we had to skip visiting Georgia and Armenia because we were unable to coordinate our travel plans. Kynsley went to Turkey after visiting Iran and I went to UAE and Oman. I found a job in between and I was supposed to start working on 2nd May which finally didn't happen and the starting date was postponed to 15th May.
I bought a cheap one-way flight ticket from Prague to Tehran with Pegasus on 13th April at 15:30. There was a short stopover in Istanbul. There is obligatory hijab in Iran and most women on the plane put on headscarves while we were landing. We arrived in Tehran nearly at 4am and the airport was crowded with people who were waiting for visa on arrival. Some of them had been waiting there already 6 hours. I had to squeeze through the crowd to get the forms which I had to fill in. I paid 78 Eur for the visa on arrival. It took nearly 4 hours until I got visa and collected my luggage and I went to meet my friend Mehdi who waited for me at the airport with his brother. I had met Mehdi once in Prague 6 years ago. He hosted me 2 nights in Tehran in his father's flat.
When we went out of the airport it was 8am and the air was still cold, around 18°C. It was also foggy. I was surprised to find out that most of the landscape in Iran was a a desert. There were high mountains in the north of Tehran with the snow on the top. Tehran looked pretty much the same as other cities in the Middle East with heavy air pollution and smog. It is not a nice city in my opinion although it has some good places to visit.
The first day I just slept till 3pm in the afternoon. Mehdi's step-mother cooked a lunch which was made of eggplant. There are many dishes made of eggplant in Iran. Then we walked in a park close to his flat which was in the north of Tehran and in the evening we went to the Tabiat Bridge which was full of people and it was illuminated at night.

We took many photos there and then we found a small restaurant nearby where we ate Ash Reshte which is a Persian noodle soup and Kashke Bademjan which is an eggplant dish with a yoghurt and crushed mint leaves.

Ash Reshte

During my trip in Iran which lasted around 2 weeks I had an opportunity to taste many traditional Persian dishes and I must say that the majority was delicious. I also developped a taste for Golab (flavoured rose water) and I drank it many times in Iran.