Breakfast in Iran

I feel a bit like the heroine in Daphne du Maurier’s book  ‘ Rebecca ’  who dreamt she was back at Manderley walking down the drive of rhododendrons, I dream I am sitting at breakfast in the Palace Hotel Shiraz, eating pale yellow saffron yoghurt sprinkled with walnuts from a large bowl on the buffet.

Maybe I’ll go up and have some white cheese drizzled with fresh honeycomb and add a few cucumber and tomato chunks just because I see them, I’ll certainly go over to the table of large tureens and find a hot hardboiled egg.

What a good idea, the eggs are always hardboiled, no guessing how long they have been cooked for.

There will be dates and other dried fruit and if we are lucky a small pot of French coffee we can top up with hot milk.

A range of breads to go with all this and sliced cold meats for those with a European taste.

Most hotels will have large machines where you can get coffee or tea, a major balancing act with fruit juice etc., but all good fun and interesting to meet tourists from other countries, the French women all wore turbans instead of the head scarf which left their necks exposed and were rather frowned upon by our tour leader.

Talking to one of the waiters he said he liked the thought that New Zealand sheep are  ‘ wild ’  and not in cages !

They are very fond of sheep meat in Iran.  We often had the most delicious lamb kebabs for lunch.

After breakfast we will walk up to the entrance gate to the city, the Koran is embedded in the arch so all those who enter the city pass underneath it and are blessed.

The view down the steep hill is of pink and cream buildings stretching out into the distance and people crossing the road between moving cars, quite fascinating to watch they seem to go on an angle and reach the other side unscathed.