Shiraz

Provincial Capital of Fars. Altitude 1,600 meters, 500 km S of Esfahan (935 km from Tehran) on a good road. 300 km N-E of Bushehr on a good road in course of completion. 600 km E of Abadan on road in process of being restored. International airport and link-up with Iran Air Internal airline. An eight-kilometer-long motorway links the airport to the outskirts of the town, eight uninterrupted kilometers of rose-garden, aptly announcing Shiraz, the "City of roses and poets". …

…large prayer hall (75 meters long, 36 meters wide) covered with small cupolas resting on forty-eight twisted columns cut out of one single block of stone. Several other religious edifices are worthy of interest. The Old Friday Mosque has in the middle of its courtyard, a building found in no other sanctuary: The Khoda Khane - "House of God" - a square building (which reportedly) imitates the Kaaba in Mecca and where the mosque's Korans are kept.