Golestan

This is Golestan Palace in Tehran, one of a few sites worth visiting in the city.  Being a public holiday there was a long queue to get in and only a handful of foreigners.  Golestan was the residence of the Qajar kings (between 1795 and 1925) who declared Tehran as the capital of Iran.  Used too by the Pahlavis for the coronations of Reza Shah and his son Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (they built their own palace up on the hillside above Tehran located in a cooler, more amenable climate).  The palace has lots of mirrored rooms, latticed windows, marble inlays, tiled wherever possible, etc. I found it all rather garish and glitzy and the much spoken about rose gardens looking worn out.  If anything, viewing this gives one an understanding about why Iranians revolted against this opulence.

Extras today are of the former US Embassy - shots include a peek over the wall.  No entry possible unfortunately.   The 'Museum of Holy Defence and the Promotion of Resistance Culture' (located uptown) was fascinating, well set up with heaps of modern multi media exhibits, some very interesting footage of the 1979 revolution but mostly focused on the Iran-Iraq War and graphically illustrative of the horrors of that war.  Unfortunately almost all exhibits in Farsi.  There is huge effort put into remembering the 'martyrs' including a corridor of wax models of slain soldiers and holograms that watch and follow you rather eerily as you pass the exhibits.  An entire section is devoted to a recreation of the marshes where thousands perished in an attack by Iran driven apparently by religious zeal and not much else and ultimately repelled by the chemical weapons used by the Iraqis.  Seeing all this makes our complex world seem even more complex.