ONE of the great joys of writing books on the ancient world is the opportunities that it provides for travel to Italy and Greece. When I was commissioned to write a book on the great wars between the Greeks and the Persians in the 5th century BC, I knew immediately that my priority was to take my wife, Sadie, and two young daughters on a six-month research trip to the land of Marathon and Salamis.
I had to promise that it wouldn’t all be tours of battlefields. Ever a man of my word, I did graciously permit the occasional day off from ruins.
The true test, however, was yet to come. The Greeks were not the only subject of my book. So, too, were their great enemies, the Persians — who had their homeland in what is now Iran. How would the Islamic Republic shape up as a holiday destination?
The portents did not appear promising. Friends, seemingly mistaking Iran for Iraq, warned us that we would end up with our heads chopped off. Condoleezza Rice popped up on telly, just as we were booking our hotel in Esfahan, talking darkly of possible US strikes on. . .Esfahan.
Even the awesomely competent Iranian woman through whom we booked our flights cheerfully confessed that she had never arranged a tour to Iran for children before. As we boarded our plane for Tehran, I found myself silently wishing that we were spending the school holidays in Cornwall.
An unworthy thought, and rapidly dispelled. No sooner had we landed than I realised that my daughters and Iran would get on fine. Tired and irritable though they were, the sheer strangeness of Tehran airport — from the billboards of frowning ayatollahs to the old women draped in black — kept them quiet and wide-eyed. Although, at six and two respectively, Katy and Eliza did not have to cover their hair, they started improvising with any piece of fabric they could lay their hands on, and asking if they could buy some real headscarves in a bazaar.
On the connecting flight, they were spoilt by the attendants, who gave them plastic planes, and sweets so bright and synthetic-looking that my children pronounced them the best they had ever had.
After what had seemed an eternity, we arrived at the ancient city of Yazd. Exotic with domes and strange towers, plus a fully functioning Zoroastrian fire temple, it looked — as Katy pointed out delightedly — like something out of Aladdin.
As did our hotel. Streams of cool water flowed around a shady courtyard and fountains bubbled. Guests watched fondly as Eliza splashed about in the fountains while other small children joined her, chasing each other and giggling.
The Iranians, we realised with relief, were perfectly tolerant of small girls who stayed up late. As every holidaying parent knows, there is no more hellish moment than having to choose between taking children out to restaurants, where they may end up being glared at by the other guests, and staying cloistered in one’s room. In Iran, where alcohol is not on the menu, children are made as welcome at midnight as they are in the middle of the day.
It was not only in restaurants that our children were treated with unfailing kindness. In the Jameh mosque in Yazd, they played happily with other children, running around the courtyard, while Sadie and I admired the architecture with a good deal less stress than we would have experienced in a cathedral; in a nearby saint’s tomb, a mullah looking like George Bush’s worst nightmare tousled their hair and offered them yet more toxic-looking sweets.
Only rarely did the attention become too much. Young women, in particular, seemed to have an insatiable appetite for taking photographs of blonde children. In the gardens of Shiraz, my daughters were pursued past cypress trees and flowerbeds by a pack of black-coated, high heel-wearing photographers. The girls were coaxed into posing with a hefty bribe of crisps. This must be how it feels to be the mother of monkeys at Longleat.
Continued on page 2
()
Nevertheless, for anyone who has travelled in Egypt or India, what strikes the visitor to Iran is how empty and hassle-free even the most celebrated tourist traps of the country are. At Persepolis, the fabled palace of the ancient Persian kings, the imposing ruins were almost deserted. Our children were at liberty to roam where they wished, without danger of being lost in a tourist swirl — just as they were in the beautiful mosques of Esfahan.
Visiting these buildings, I had worried that my children would be bored; but in truth, my elder daughter did not require a precocious interest in architecture to appreciate settings that might have emerged from a picture book. The bull-headed gateway of Persepolis, the peacock shimmer of the Imam mosque in Esfahan: visions such as these are the very essence of a child’s fantasies of the Orient.
As for my younger daughter, as long as she had water to play with she was happy. At Persepolis, dry and dust-swept, she duly had a tantrum; but in the Imam mosque she played happily beside the cool water of the inner courtyard’s pool.
Back in London, we found our children’s memories of Iran wholly happy ones. Even now, whenever they play with the planes that they were given on the flight to Yazd, they will say that they are “flying to Iran”. There are yelps of delight, too, whenever they spot women wearing headscarves or — even more thrillingly — the full black tent of the burqa: “Iran ladies” , they will cry. Children, after all, can travel oblivious to the tensions that may afflict a foreign country. Young people in Iran, one schoolboy informed us in his idiomatic English, “are not in the middle of fun” but our daughters certainly were.
And as for my wife and myself — well, who needs Disneyworld when you can take the children to Iran?
Tom Holland is the author of Persian Fire (Little, Brown, £20).
Need to know
Getting there: Tom Holland travelled with Magic Carpet Travel (01344 622832, www.magic-carpet-travel.com), which offers group and tailor-made tours to Iran. An eight-day Iran — the Essence trip costs £1,345pp, including flights, full-board accommodation, entrance fees and services of a guide.
Exhibition: Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia is at the British Museum (www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk) until 2006.
Reading: Iran — Persia: Ancient and Modern (Odyssey Books & Guides) £15.95 plus p&p from www.amazon.co.uk; Iran (Lonely Planet, £15.99).
