Why travel to Iran should be next on your bucket list

We wake to the chirping of birds and the soft murmur of the water fountain in the courtyard outside. Pulling aside the tall curtains, sunlight streams into the room, illuminating the glittering chandelier and elegant patterns painted on the walls in gold, turquoise and chocolate brown. We watch a bird take an energetic morning bath in the courtyard pool before fluttering off above the deep pink roses into the trees.

We dress quickly, eager for the day ahead. We have treasures to see: many are Unesco World Heritage sites, including a building so beautiful it has been known to move visitors to tears. Then there are heavenly gardens and sumptuous palaces to stroll through and ancient bridges to cross, followed by hunting out antiques and exquisite handicrafts in row after row of boutiques.

Are we in Venice? Paris? Madrid? Far from it. We are in Esfahan, Iran.

But isn’t Iran dangerous?

Ask someone who’s been there and invariably they will describe this much-maligned country as one of the safest and friendliest they’ve ever visited. Strangers regularly stop you for a chat, offer snacks of dried cherries or nuts, and invite you home to lunch. While city walls are still emblazoned with giant anti-America and “Down with Israel” murals, the average Iranian will repeatedly assure you they love the West, and ask if you could please tell your friends and family back home that Iranians are very happy for them to visit. “That Iran is unsafe is an outdated notion, almost irrelevant,” says Jason Elliot, prize-winning British author of Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran.

“It’s far safer than many places I’ve been, safer than many places in Europe. I meet a lot of people who’ve been to Iran who are astonished at how modern it is. The West has been isolated from Iran; Iranians are not isolated from the West.”

Iran’s legacy of being unsafe for tourists dates back almost four decades to the violence of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the US-backed Shah was ousted from power and the Islamic Republic was born. The new regime closed its doors to foreign intervention, the veil replaced the miniskirt, and Iran became one of the world’s most reviled nations. Over the decades, however, relations have thawed, and US- and Europe-imposed sanctions were lifted last year. Despite new tensions with the Trump administration in recent months, Iran remains committed to strengthening ties and building its tourism sector with both East and West. Visitor numbers are increasing fast.