LIFTING the Veil
How was your trip to Iraq… or was it Afghanistan?” a friend asked at a recent dinner party. Another pulled me aside to enquire if I’d needed a bodyguard. I had, in fact, been on a 10-day tour of Iran, journeying by luxury coach from the southern city of Shiraz to the capital,
Tehran, with a group of 15 other adventurous souls. Their confusion was understandable. I’d probably have reacted the same way before experiencing firsthand the utterly beguiling yet much misunderstood country. After all, back in 2002 Iran was lumped, together with North Korea and Iraq, into US President George W Bush’s “axis of evil.” Since then, unrelenting media coverage of its controversial nuclear programme, placard-waving hate mobs and “Death to America” murals have done little to dispel this stereotype—but change is afoot.
Following last summer’s nuclear deal and the recent lifting of economic sanctions, the world is starting to see Iran as something other than a threat. European governments, including the UK’s, are relaxing travel warnings and the Islamic republic is rapidly becoming a “must-visit” destination. With its incredible ancient monuments, imperial palaces, dazzlingly decorated mosques, bustling bazaars, breathtaking landscapes, and no less than 20 Unesco World Heritage sites, it’s like no other country I’ve visited and rightly deserves a place on travel hotlists.
As for the Iranian people, well, at
