Hunting for kebab in Shiraz

What to do in Shiraz, the lovely city in the south of Iran? Go on a quest to find the perfect kebab, of course.

So here I am, spending the days getting lost in the bazaar, visiting lots of shrines and trying to find decent coffee. Walked north through Melli park where there was a lot of tents, as the Iranian people sure loves to picnic. I like the people here, they are very friendly and eager to get their hands on strange mp3 music from westerners.

Nasir al-Mulk in Shiraz.

I’m a sucker for sweets, so I sat down for the odd local specialty Faloodeh, some sort of frozen starch lime juice with rose water. Weird but not bad.

Faloodeh.

The Faloodeh was close but no kebab, so the quest continued westbound along the noisy streets. After a while we arrived at something called the gas field, where I found amazingly good kebab sitting on a small outside table in the street.

Having awesome kebab.

Even though the city of Shiraz has much to offer, there are also many interesting things a few hours away. The magnificent ruins of Persepolis north of Shiraz are not to be missed. Since Xerxes sacked Athens in 480 BC (after supposedly defeating 300 Spartans earlier at Thermopylae), it was probably inevitable that Alexander the Great had to burn Persepolis to the ground in retaliation 150 years later.

The remains of Xerxes’ Palace in Persepolis.

Traces of fire are still visible on the columns of the Apadana in Persepolis.

Now it’s time to go hunting for some more kebab.