Persian hospitality and quick friendships are hard to avoid anywhere in Iran – especially when you’re in the country. On our weekend autumn getaway near Mashhad, we ate a lot of traditional food, we also visited the shrine of a local Shia saint who almost instantly answered my prayer!
My stay in a simple country home in Iran’s countryside was unforgettable – even if wife and I had to sleep on the floor. No Internet, no TV, no phone calls. We had no choice but wind down and notice the beauty of autumn in northeast Iran, near Mashhad.
A postal route operated here when North America wasn’t yet settled by Europeans. International traders slept here in style 200 years before there was even such a thing as the United States. But today the caravanserai of Zafaraniyeh sits empty and abandoned, like thousands of other ancient jewels all over Iran, victim of time, cultural amnesia..