Unpredictable Iran Hotels - Complexities, Divorces, Discoveries and Expositions

Iran is quite suitable for independent travel. True, there are many nuances here that may seem surprising, absurd, and even sometimes unthinkable to a modern person. If possible, you should find out about them in advance so as not to get into trouble.

For me personally, the most difficult moment for the entire time of our trip to this country was the search for hotels and apartments. I’m already used to plan my travel arrangements in advance by booking the appropriate hotels along the way. Since most often we travel together with our wife or the whole family with children, we approach the topic of overnight quite scrupulously. We read reviews in advance, determine the location, pay attention to small details. Over the past 10 years, we have developed a kind of algorithm in this matter.

So, in Iran I had to abandon such a system and rely on the will of chance. After all, world reservation systems do not work here, and for orders on local search pages you need an Iranian bank card. You can work with travel agencies in this matter, but it will turn out to be expensive and expensive.

We went the other way, relying in part on luck and faith in ourselves. And we succeeded, although we experienced many adventures. I’ll tell you more about everything, for sure this experience can be useful to someone, by the way, my work will brighten up everyday life.

At the first stage of planning a trip to Iran, I still tried to make a certain route and reserve hotels. To search for hotels, I used the new Tripadvisor system. Iranian hotels there are represented quite well, in addition, you can read a lot of reviews. Perhaps it is the reviews from there that will help to make up any opinion on the proposed hotel.

The Iranian hotel business has a number of distinctive features. Firstly, it focuses more on the local population. Affects the long isolation of this country, there are still few foreign tourists here.

Another detail - almost all hotels provide a minimum of information about themselves. In Iran, it is not customary to photograph latrines or breakfasts. But on the page of almost any hotel there will be many photographs of the lobby and common areas. Only by the comments could one somehow orientate oneself in the situation. In addition, in general, there are still a few hotels in Iran, so God forbid getting there during local holidays, then without preliminary booking it will be very difficult to find something.

Having selected the options that interest me, I decided to try to reserve the rooms for the desired dates. And then the problems began. As I already said, it is simply impossible to do this with our credit cards on Iranian websites, so I tried to contact the hotels directly. But it was not there! In total, I sent more than 30 letters to different hotels. Only a few answered me, and only two hotels were reserved. I had to go to Iran without an exact plan of action ...

There were no problems with the first Markazi hotel in Tehran. We found it quite easily on a pre-printed reservation. By the way, it was on its basis that we were issued Iranian visas at the airport upon arrival from Istanbul. A simple printout of an email with a phone number was more than enough for this.

For 70 euros we got an epic terrible room without a single window, but with many doors.

Behind them were already two toilets and a closet. Do not ask me why in the poor little room there were two toilets! I do not know that!

Remember this hotel and do not book it in any case. Yes, there is a beautiful lobby and polite staff, but the plywood doors in the rooms and the terrible rooms with poor soundproofing are absolutely not worth their price.

The next two days we spent in Shiraz. In this city, we managed to reserve in advance a very good hotel Arg Hotel a few meters from the old bazaar. And the location, and amenities, and the price of 40 € completely satisfied us.

This hotel is initially oriented towards foreigners, hence the high level of service. One of its undoubted advantages are excellent views of the city from the hotel roof, which has a small cafe. This hotel I can safely recommend going to visit Shiraz. One need only remember one moment.

Pay for the number is only in local currency. If you decide to pay in dollars or euros, get ready to overpay 10-15 percent more.

Further, our path lay in the ancient city of Yazd, whose ancient center is entirely included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. I could not pre-book the hotel here, but I printed several addresses and decided to find a free room on the spot. But here we were disappointed.

The girl at the reception of the first hotel informed us that there were no rooms available. She undertook to help us and immediately phoned a dozen neighboring hotels, but everywhere she was waiting for a disappointing answer - there are no places! In the end, it seems that she found us two bunks in one of the so-called "dormeti" or in our hostel. When we found out their price, ofigeli. 80 euros per bed in a hostel - it seemed to us an incredible price. We took the address of that hostel and, in complete confusion, went outside.

Such expenses were not included in our plans, so we decided to continue the search. And just five minutes later, in the nearby information center, we were offered an overnight stay in a traditional Yazd house. We had nothing to lose and we decided to inspect this option. What we saw struck us!

The whole old city here is built of clay. Many houses here are five to six centuries old. Outwardly, all the buildings here do not look very presentable, but sometimes real masterpieces can be found inside them. Our traditional house also looked from the street like an ordinary clay wall with unusual wooden doors. Only one huge key to them was worth it!

Inside the recess there were several original two-story buildings. It had its own kitchen, a patio with sunbeds and a date palm, as well as a separate toilet with a shower.

Everything looked a little battered by time, but it only added charm.

We settled in the largest room with many bizarre recesses in the walls and a beautiful stained-glass window at the top. The photo below shows the genuine reaction of my wife to this real eastern miracle.

Nearby were several more rooms. We were told that there was a chance that someone else would be brought here, but we were lucky, and we spent two days here all alone.

Very unusual here was the exit to the roof, which was located directly in the kitchen.

For this interesting option for the night we were offered to pay 50 euros per day, but as a result of a small bargain the price fell to 40 euros. We went to breakfast in the neighboring large hotel, which was located in a former traditional caravanserai.

There are many such hotels in Yazd. They deserve attention! Inside, you can usually see a lot of antiques and original interiors. Usually foreign tourists are entertained by a special guide. In our case, it was a man with a luxurious mustache and a parrot.

Needless to say, in Yazd we had a wonderful time and left here with obvious reluctance. We still didn’t understand whether the initial offer with the hostel was a misunderstanding or some kind of Iranian divorce, but a similar situation happened in the next city on our way - Isfahan.

This city is a large local center with many tourist attractions. There are a lot of hotels here, but not a single one answered all my emails with a request for registration. As a result, we arrived directly from the bus station in the city center and again decided to deal with everything right on the spot.

In the first hotel, they started to breed us again. At the reception they said that there were no places in the hotel, there was some kind of holiday in the city, so there was no point in looking for something. True to our good fortune, some guests today decided to leave ahead of time and by chance in the hotel some apartments of increased comfort will soon be released for only 90 euros per day.
By the way, I can say that this price is quite normal for Iranian hotels in big cities. Moreover, we stayed in a four-star hotel.

The interiors of the common areas here impressed us with many elegant wooden details, and breakfast was perhaps the coolest of all in Iran.

We decided to inspect the room, and it seemed to us really quite worthy of our money.

Only now our budget was not rubber. In Isfahan, we were going to stay for three nights, so it was decided to take this option for one day and look around the area in search of cheaper options.

And again it turned out that these options are full. First we found a free room at an apart hotel nearby for 70 euros. And just a hundred meters from him we were offered a price of 45 euros for a very acceptable room with a balcony.

He completely arranged us.

Yes, the hotel was budget, a bit neglected, but clean and comfortable enough. I recommend! In addition, it was convenient to take walks around the city from here.

Well, based on our experience, we can say that in Iran you should never throw at the first option that has come up. It is worth looking around, walking around the neighborhood. Perhaps in a block nearby you will find the option many times cheaper and better. The main thing is not to be divorced, that there is a holiday in the city and there are no places anywhere ...

Yes, and more! You should not sit in hotels here. They don’t sell booze here, but on TV they show complete crap! But on the next street nearby, incredible adventures can wait.