I spent a rather sleepless night in the noisy hotel and  decided that I would move today. Just round the corner I found a slightly cheaper and infinitely friendlier place and while it didn't have the Basil Fawlty charm it was certainly nicer. Without fixed plans I headed off to wander the streets and while they do not have th character of Yazd, they certainly make up for it by having long, stretching boulevards lined with trees and blossoming flowers - except for the traffic and loud Iranians one could be forgiven for mistakenly thinking they were in Paris.

It was Friday - the Iranian weekend and everything was annoyingly closed so I wondered what on earth I would do to fill my day. I hadn't walked far when a rather unusual cry of "monsieur" stopped me. It was the first French spoken by an Iranian that I had heard and I was immediately intrigued. I responded, in French, assuming that the guy would end up confused since he proabbly only knew one word in French. But to my pleasant surprise he chatted back happily in French. It turns out that Ali (as he was called) had spent some time studying in France until the Revolution when he returned to his country. He was now a teacher in biology and geology at the local government school and had the envious task of working just 4 hours a day in the morning.

Ali decided that he would take me to lunch at the local restaurant and then show me a little of the sights. He was a most interesting man and gave my French some welcome practice. By the early afternoon he had to go but he gave me his phone number and said he wanted to meet up tomorrow when he would show me other parts of town. I had no fixed plans so willingly agreed and went off to explore the breathtakingly beautriful blue-tiled Imam mosque built at one end of Imam square.

On my way back, a group of young guys from just outside Esfahan, accosted me and we exchanged the usual information that one can when no-one speaks much English. One guy insisted we take hundreds of photos and I began to wonder if I'd falllen into a Japanese tour group. As the sun set the square began to fill with groups of people and families laying out rugs and having elaborate evening picnics, including the requisite pot of tea boiling on the stove. The intimate atmosphere allowed us to "chat up" (though that is hardly the right word here) some passing girls, clad from head to toe in black chadors. Indeed quite a few girls were clearly stretching the headscarf law to the limit, had fringes showing and were wearing copious amounts of jewellery and makeup. Nevertheless there is still a large discrepancy between the strict and restarined public life and the liberal priuvate life in the home. I'm helpfully informed that any sort of relations between a foreigner and an Iranian girl are strictly forbidden and punishable by something close to the death penalty. Look but don't touch.