One of the most well known architectural sites in Iran has to be the Nasir-Ol-Molk in Shiraz, commonly referred to as the Pink Mosque. From the outside, it looks fairly similar to other places of worship in the country, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. The facade of the mosque features extensive use of colored glass, which is the reason for the incredible array of colors inside.

 
The sun light hits the facade only in the morning until 11am-ish, but to see it this empty you need to be there way before that. Even at 7am when we went, there were already a few people inside.

 
The photos don’t do it justice, it really is quite spectacular to see in real life.

 
The whole floor is covered with Persian carpets (and you have to take your shoes off to get in, much like in all mosques) which makes for a really nice experience, just sitting and taking in the atmosphere. This was not a staged photo at all, clearly 😉

 
Some really fantastic details and ornaments on the walls.

 
The name Pink Mosqie is derived from the extensive use of pink-colored tiles in the interior — sometimes hard to appreciate with the spectacle of color happening all around.

 
There are intricately painted arches and niches all around, including the elaborate ceiling.

 
All this beauty causes people to do strange things though. This couple was taking 15-20 minutes to take photos of themselves against the one wall where the light was hitting the tiles and that ends up being in 90% of all shots. Normally that would be fine, but given there’s only a couple of hours of proper light, it’s essentially quite inconsiderate to others. My approach is to normally wait it out, but one guy from the UK had enough I think so he came over and almost started a physical fight with the guy over moving quicker. Crazy and quite disrespectful to the place and other people.

 
The above might not be too surprising though when you see how many people actually come in after 8.30/9am. So much for the serenity of the early morning. It got worse, btw, so I’m really glad we came early.

 
Despite the fight at the end, it was truly one of the most beautiful buildings that I’ve been in and so worth visiting!