The beauty of Iran

Solace for the body: The interior of an Iranian tea house in Isfahan.

Minarets and domes: Isfahan's Emam mosque dominates its central square.

Solace for the spirit: The interior of the Sheik Lotfollah mosque.

The interior of the Sheik Lotfollah mosque.

Women students wearing chadors walking past the Khaju Bridge in Isfahan.

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If the stairs to the Qeysarieh Tea Shop in Isfahan were any steeper they'd be called a ladder.

At the top of these high, carpeted steps one emerges like a rabbit from a burrow into a room hung with posters of religious masters and film stars, brass bells and old teapots. In the niches along one wall there's usually a young man frantically washing glasses in a sink while another carefully tends a brazier full of charcoal.

Almost invariably there'll be at least one local with several days of stubbly beard sitting at a table in front of a pot of tea and a hubble-bubble water pipe, or qalyan as it's called in Persian.

For more than 400 years Isfahanis have called this Iranian city Isfahan Nesf-e Jahan, Isfahan is Half the World. And for maybe 100 years it probably was one of the most beautiful cities on Earth, the glorious capital of the Safavid dynasty that ruled the vast Persian Empire throughout the 16th century until an Afghan invasion in 1722.

Today, other cities could lay valid claims to competing beauty but Isfahan is still home to some of the most breathtaking examples of Islamic architecture to be found anywhere. It was here, beside the Zayandeh River, that the Persian arts, including carpet-making and miniature painting, reached their pinnacle.

Today, Isfahan is Iran's third largest city and its outskirts are as featureless and ordinary as those of any other. But in its ancient heart the glories of the reign of its principal designer and king, Shah Abbas the Great, still shine.

And, if Isfahan is half the world, then a large proportion of this exquisite world can be seen from the Qeysarieh tea house terrace. The terrace is at one end of the third largest public square in the world – only Red and Tiananmen squares are larger. At the far end rise the minarets and domes of the Emam mosque with its turquoise and lapis tiles and swirling white calligraphy. To the left, two thirds of the length of one of the long sides of the rectangular Emam Khomeini Square or maidan, is another mosque, Sheikh Lotfollah with its pale gold dome wreathed in white floral designs and fringed with a band of more turquoise and lapis Isfahani tiles. Directly across from this masterpiece is the six-storeyed Ali Qapu palace where Safavid kings used to sit to watch polo games on the square below. Two of the original polo goal posts still stand near the Emam mosque.

The best time to brave the tea house stairs is late afternoon when the harsh sunlight softens and illuminates the domes and gleams on the soaring minarets. It is also the time when Isfahanis head for the maidan to sprawl on the lawns with picnics and ice creams and to pass around boxes of the local sweet gaz, nougat studded with pistachio nuts.

The tea house doesn't serve gaz but tea in glasses and a plate of delicately shaped pastries with sticky glazes. You can also order qaylan and fill the terrace with the aroma of orange, apple or rose-flavoured tobacco.

As the sun sets, the shadows deepen along the silhouette of the Zagros Mountains in the distance and the muezzin begins the haunting call to prayer: "Allah Akhbar ..." while the traffic continues to pour through the two gates still open to motorised traffic. Travelling at a more sedate pace nearby are horse-drawn carriages, their black hoods often sheltering courting couples or gaggles of small schoolgirls.

Tea houses have long been places to meet and gossip and this one is no exception. It's mostly travellers on the terrace – the locals such as the three smiling young Iranian army soldiers who briefly come out to admire the view, seem to prefer to sit inside.

A young Iranian man arrives. He imports tropical fruit to Iran. He tells me he's heard New Zealand is very beautiful, so green. I ask him who told him. "There's a guy in the bazaar who sells carpets who studied in Timaru," he says. Maybe Isfahan still is half the world.

We find the ex-Timaru student later. He`d trained as a chef and asks me if I think it's fair that he was charged three or four times what a Kiwi student paid for the same course. I agree it seems exorbitant. We're discussing the time he spent working in Omarama as the lights of the covered bazaar come on illuminating windows crammed with the delicate brushwork of the miniature painters, the tiny knots of the silk carpets from the nearby religious centre of Qom and the blue and mint green arabesques on enamel sweet dishes and vases.

At nightfall, it's the Zayandeh River and its 17th century bridges that draw me, along with hundreds of Isfahanis, to its banks. But this year there is not a drop of water in the river bed. I'm told that after months of drought the water has been diverted on to thirsty farmland.

But Si-o-Seh Pol – the bridge of 33 arches – still gracefully spans the cracked riverbed. Once a main thoroughfare into the city, the bridge is now for pedestrians only and is always thronged with people. Some cross by using the narrow ledge directly under the arches and above a sheer drop to the riverbed below. Each arch has a spotlight but some are in shadow due to broken bulbs. Lone figures or sometimes couples stand in the darkness staring out across the river, or into each other's eyes.

Downstream is the Khaju Bridge, a double-storeyed bridge that in the evenings is often home to singers. Under the arches just centimetres above the rushing water (when it flows) young men stand and sing. Their audience gathers around or perches on the bridge abutments while Persian love songs echo around the vaulted roof.

Carefully-tended gardens line both sides of the river. These too are popular with picnickers, lovers and groups of young men, who in their tight jeans, logo-emblazoned T-shirts and gelled hair seem to be taking little heed of a new official edict banning Western-influenced hairstyles and clothes.

There are fitness stations, too; equipment for toning abs, biceps and quads and step machines for cardio workouts. I watched as a woman in a full length all-enveloping black chador worked on her waistline. Chadors being just one vast piece of material with no ties take some looking after.

The exerciser was gripping hers with her teeth. Her girlfriend sat nearby, iPod earplugs in place and texting furiously.

- © Fairfax NZ News