By MOHAMED EL HEBEISHY, LIFE.STYLE@ARABNEWS.COM

It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Iran tails your list of destinations; it probably does. However, if one goes beyond the political stigma, there are a lot of historical attractions that will certainly leave you surprised with Iran.

Just a month or so ago, my wife and I decided to pack our stuff and go for a one-week Iranian interlude. Tehran was our first stop.

Growing up in Cairo, Tehran does stun us; it has the same horrendous traffic jams, overcrowded streets with people coming and going in all directions, polluted air and most probably the same crazy taxi drivers. Subsiding the traffic, the crowd and the pollution, Tehran is a multilayer city that offers a lot to its visitors, especially if one is looking for history.

Leading the list of attractions in Tehran is the Golestan Palace, or rather the Rose Garden Palace, as the translation would suggest. A marvelous piece of architecture, the palace is actually a complex of a number of buildings that were built and renovated several times during the rule of different Persian dynasties, including the Safavid as well as the Qajars. The highlight of our visit to the palace was the masterfully crafted marble throne known by the name Takht-e- Marmar. Consisting of a platform supported by six angels, three demons and eleven columns, the throne took 65 marble stones and almost four years to be finished. It was built for the Qajar king Fath Ali Shah.