Persepolis

This is the tomb of King Darius - the thought of the time frame and the history is amazing to me. I was very disappointed that we did not visit these sites near Shiraz last visit - this time I was determined. We flew Tehran-Shiraz return on Iran Air,

which I have to admit scared me a little bit!

This experience was truly a highlight of our trip, other than meeting family, for me. I have so many pictures, but the point really is to try to portray the scale - which is truly awesome (in the true sense of the word). The history and the story of Persepolis and it's demise is interesting. There were 4 kings that ruled/lived at Persepolis, beginning with Darius I, followed by Darius II, Xerxes I and Xerxes II. The final king was deposed by Alexander the Great. Darius was, apparently, quite a humane king - having 'written' a sort of code of human rights - that included paying wages to the people who built Persepolis. This fact is important to Iranian people, and specifically to my sister-in-law. She was very proud to point this out to me.

It was relatively hot this day, though it is winter in Iran in December, like here, but it's further south and we tramped all over the entire sight, so Manochehr and I were hot and we stopped for a rest and a wonderful cooling drink that is served to cool people down. I can't remember the name of it, and I'm not familiar with it here in North America. We bought some of the 'seeds' to make the drink here in the summer time. It worked like a charm! We also had a bowl of 'Foludeh', and wonderful Persian ice cream flavored with rose water and lime. Delicious!