Fin Garden in Kashan

Kashan is very much a city in the desert, but it flourished mainly due to the fact that it is one of the more important oasis in the region. The contrast of the immense desert and the well taken care gardens made a stark contrast. while research indicates that the Fin garden in its present form dated back to the Safavid period, that were sources which speculate the garden exist at an even more ancient era. The Persian Garden باغ ایرانی was an effort to create Paradise on earth, and the word "Paradise" was in fact derived from Persian.

From wikipedia, which seems believable enough:

Persian gardens
"From the time of the Achaemenid dynasty the idea of an earthly paradise spread to the literature and languages of other cultures. The Avestan word pairidaêza-, Old Persian *paridaida-, Median *paridaiza- (walled-around, i.e., a walled garden), was transliterated into Greek paradeisoi, then rendered into the Latin paradisus, and from there entered into European languages, e.g., French paradis, German Paradies, and English paradise. The word entered Semitic languages as well: Akkadian pardesu, Hebrew pardes, and Arabic firdaws."

There were elements which were essential to the creation of a Persian Garden. In particular to the Fin Garden, however, the presence of a well designed water feature is possibly one of the best in this category. No mechanical means were used throughout for the water fountains.

Amir Kabir Hotel

as we travelled further south, the air became drier, and the weather resembled more of a desert environment.
sparsely populated, we seldom saw people travelled in groups. Economy in this smaller desert city was remarkably slower.
this was the place where we had lunch, probably one of the more well established hotel in the vicinity though we failed to see a single guest, as February was normally not the travel season...
Amir Kabir was the name of a former chancellor of Iran, who was assasinated in the nearby Fin Bath in 1852...

surrounded

It was a good 3 to 4 hours of travelling time from Tehran to Kashan.
Along the journey, we have stopped once to take a break, bought some water.
Took this picture at the stop, and seriously, have no clues at all our whereabout except it's halfway between the two cities.
In the distance was a series of snow filled mountain range, without a person at sight. But at the base of the mountain, there were white steams rising up, suggestion of a hot spring? or of volcanic activities?
and somehow, that reminded us what happened in Bam, 2003, an earthquake that almost destroyed the entire city...

on the way to Kashan

while our destination of the day was Esfahan, some 400km from Tehran, we stopped by the city Kashan, which was more or less half way between the two.
during the journey, then we realized how large a country Iran was.
vast fields extended into the horizon with snow filled plains near and afar.