I hate to admit it but we arrived in Mashhad yesterday almost totally ignorant of the importance of Mashhad to Shia (Shiite) Muslims and to some degree the sheer size of the city. So today when the local guide we organized yesterday turned up and took us on a short tour of the city we were more than a little surprised by what we found.

As a small aside our understanding of what we saw and heard was helped a little by a book called All The Shahs Men which Nina and I have been reading. While it focuses on the CIA's overthrow of the Iran government in 1952 it also gives a nice readable history of Iran and the Shiite form of the Muslim faith.

The first stop of our tour in the center of the city is a complex of courtyards, minarets, domes and halls called Imam Reza's Holy Shrine. This is a vast complex which exhibits domes, minarets and arches covered in pure gold. The largest of the courtyards can accommodate 100,000 people and all the courtyards combined can hold collectively 900,000 people. The Shrine is a major pilgrimage destination for Shiite Muslims, second only to Mecca with the city of Mashhad receiving 20,000,000 visitors a year - mostly as pilgrims. A person who has pilgrimaged to the Shrine in Mashhad may use the title Mashti. It was a simply amazing place, but unfortunately photgraphy was not allowed. But I managed to capture the following few images with my iPhone.

Next on our agenda was a shopping spree around the center of the city for some food items. This required us to change some money and visit the city center bazaar where all kinds of spices and fruits were available. We saw but did not buy large piles of saffron. What we did buy was some meat (first since Russia), fresh dates and a couple of varieties of bread.

We topped our tour off with a meal at one of the better (according to our guide) restaurants in town. We ordered kebabs (that's what we would call them at home). Meat on metal skewers. Throughout Central Asia and Russia these are known as Shashlik and are generally made from an alternating mix of lamb fat and old lamb meat. In Iran they are called Shishlik, not a big linguistic difference. But the culinary difference is beyond words. The shishlick we were served had 6 to 8 lamb cutlets on each skewer. The meat was young and tender and very nicely cooked. It is without a doubt the best meat meal we have had since we left the US.

So educated about the Shrine, the ways of Shia Muslims, and very well fed our guide Towhid dropped us back at the camping ground. As a point of reference for other travelers Towhid spoke very good English and his contact details are in the Lonely Planet under Mashhad.