Steph and I went to Iran with a friend who was going back to visit her family.
![Steph and the abandoned palace. The history here is rich and the people are all storytellers but buildings like this are left to decay.](/posts/iran/palace.jpg)
Steph and the abandoned palace. The history here is rich and the people are all storytellers but buildings like this are left to decay.
![Shemshak, a ski village a couple hours north of Tehran.](/posts/iran/ski-village.jpg)
Shemshak, a ski village a couple hours north of Tehran.
![One last photo from Esfahan. The gate to a seriously enormous mosque. Everything is self-supporting arches. There’s one square in the middle of the mosque and when you speak there it resonates through the whole building. Steph aptly calls it a #mathsmiracle and it’s sad that nobody knows how to design like this anymore.](/posts/iran/mosque-esfahan.jpg)
One last photo from Esfahan. The gate to a seriously enormous mosque. Everything is self-supporting arches. There’s one square in the middle of the mosque and when you speak there it resonates through the whole building. Steph aptly calls it a #mathsmiracle and it’s sad that nobody knows how to design like this anymore.
![I can’t get over the wooden columns holding up pretty much everything old in Iran, including the balcony roof in this 17th century palace.](/posts/iran/columns.jpg)
I can’t get over the wooden columns holding up pretty much everything old in Iran, including the balcony roof in this 17th century palace.
![Persepolis - an enormous palace complex where each king tried to one-up the last in grandeur. Then Alexander came through and burned the whole thing around 500 BC. The style of the time was all-wooden buildings with a stone archway for each door, and so for this palace that’s all that’s left](/posts/iran/persepolis.jpg)
Persepolis - an enormous palace complex where each king tried to one-up the last in grandeur. Then Alexander came through and burned the whole thing around 500 BC. The style of the time was all-wooden buildings with a stone archway for each door, and so for this palace that’s all that’s left
![Very traditional.](/posts/iran/very-traditional.jpg)
Very traditional.
![](/posts/iran/mountains.jpg)