TEHRAN – Tehran province is offering free tours during the two-day Eid al-Fitr holidays, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

The tours will be held in the Iranian capital and the cities of Rey, Varamin, and Damavand, the provincial tourism chief has said. 

“The tour itineraries include cultural heritage museums, rural areas, natural sights, and the historical core of Tehran,” Parham Janfeshan explained on Saturday.

Hugging the lower slopes of the magnificent, snowcapped Alborz Mountains, Tehran is much more than a chaotic jumble of concrete and crazy traffic blanketed by a miasma of air pollution. This is the nation's dynamic beating heart and the place to get a handle on modern Iran and what its future will likely be.

The metropolis has many to offer its visitors including Golestan Palace, Grand Bazaar, Treasury of National Jewels, National Museum of Iran, Glass & Ceramic Museum, Masoudieh Palace, Sarkis Cathedral, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Carpet Museum of Iran, to name a few.

The first time Tehran is mentioned in historical accounts is in an 11th-century chronicle in which it is described as a small village north of Ray. It became the capital city of the Seljuk Empire in the 11th century but later declined with factional strife between different neighborhoods and the Mongol invasion of 1220.

This year’s Ramadan began on April 03, which falls in the spring season in Iran and it is estimated to end on Sunday evening. Because of the nature of the lunar calendar system, the dates of Ramadan vary each year and there is always a sort of disagreement among scholars as to when Ramadan precisely start or come to an end.

By tradition, the new moon crescent which is sighted by the naked eye marks the beginning of a new lunar month but these days Muslims prefer to lean towards astronomical calculations to avoid such confusion.

ABU/AFM