If you are coming here, say you are going to Persia, a tourist guide suggested. After seven days there, Ray Bugeja could only wonder why Persia or Iran, call it what you will, does not feature prominently on tourist brochures given what the country has to offer and the warmth of its people.

With an estimated population of about 78 million, most of them aged under 30, the Islamic Republic of Iran, to use the official title, attracts something like two million tourists a year. A significant chunk originate from the European Union, notably Italy, Germany, France and Belgium.

Evidently realising the potential of the country and, of course, the economic benefits, the authorities want to boost that number and they are very ambitious, planning to attract 20 million visitors annually by 2015. Quite a feat but they are working very hard on it. Having been there, I cannot see why they should fail, provided nothing untoward happens in the region that may scare visitors away.

Why would one want to holiday in Iran?

That was what I asked myself too when the invitation to visit the country ended up on my desk. In a way, I was an accidental tourist. It seems the invite from the Iranian Embassy in Rome, which also covers Malta, was made to somebody else but the person was unable to go. It was then channelled to me and, I have to admit, I immediately decided to take it up.

Accompanied by photographer Matthew Mirabelli, we left Malta on a Friday morning flight en route to Rome via Reggio Calabria. On the plane were Maltese pilgrims on their way to the Eternal City to attend the beatification ceremony of John Paul II. His smiling face could be seen on huge billboards at Fiumicino. A few hours later and much further east, it was the image of Ayatollah Khomeini that was so conspicuous in most locations.

We took the evening Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul and then on to Tehran. What struck me here was how much closer to Europe Iran is than I originally thought. It took us about two hours to fly from Rome to Istanbul and then, after changing plane, another two hours and 40 minutes to the Iranian capital.

As we approached Tehran, I could notice women on board wearing headscarves, which ladies must wear in Iran. We landed at Imam Khomeini International Airport early on a Saturday morning (Iran is two and a half hours ahead) and at the airport we met a small group of Italian journalists, including a veteran from L’Espresso and a Rai crew, who had arrived on an Alitalia flight from Rome via Ankara.

Having been channelled through a lounge marked CIP, for commercially important persons, passport clearance and luggage reclaim was handled by Iranian officials who looked more western than most of us in the group. After a 40-minute drive, we were settled at the Laleh Hotel where we could rest for a couple of hours before we had breakfast and then started a tour of the city.

With a population exceeding seven million, Tehran immediately struck me as a disorganised and dirty city with drivers I can only describe as “crazy”. I used to think traffic in Beijing was chaotic but Tehran beats it hollow.

The high-rise buildings and other modern structures do not help to give it any character and this became a lot more obvious when visiting other cities in Iran, even though the capital does have some interesting attractions.

One thing that stood out right from the moment I set foot on the streets of Iran right though my journey there was the ubiquitous Paykan cars, reminiscent of the Hillman Hunter and which one of our hosts described as the poor man’s car. In different shades of colour and in all sort of condition it can be spotted hurtling down a road, cruising at snail’s pace or pushing its way between a fully-loaded coach and a heavy truck as they vie for an opening while negotiating a roundabout. Also very conspicuous are the signs in English. I also learnt that the teaching of English is compulsory in schools.

After less than a day in the capital, we took an Iran Air flight to Yazd –“the sublime mud brick city of the world”. The B727 ride took just under an hour and we landed at about 7.30 p.m. in a temperature of 30°C, and this was still the end of April.

The capital of Yazd Province and a centre of Zoroastrian culture, Yazd, with a population of over 500,000, is one of the most industrialised cities in Iran. It is renowned for its handwoven products, including textiles and carpets, the manufacture of tiles and sweets. I was not surprised when I was told Yazd has the biggest concentration of diabetics in the country! The people there are also very religious and known for their honesty. At the Termeh Khoiasteh Keshmir Yazd Handwoven Production and Distribution Centre, Rezoi, 92, holds on to the job he has been doing for the past 70 odd years: Making magnificently -coloured and elaborate carpets. Nowadays, however, he spends more time on his wooden chair helping himself to tea than at the carpet-making machine, preferring to be his own boss, deciding when to work or rest. It was with some reluctance, though with a smile, that he walked the few metres to his manually-operated contraption to do some work for the cameras. In the narrow roads one could notice that the doors have different knobs on each side. The reason is for the ladies inside to know whether the person knocking is a man or a woman because, in the case of a male visitor, the woman would have to cover her head. But what if the person at the door cheats, one Italian journalist asked. They are honest people, was the quick answer.

Yazd boasts of what it claims to be the world’s oldest water plumbing system, with water being extracted from the bowels of the earth without it evaporating.

At the Zoroastrian Fire Temple burns a flame that, it is claimed, has not been extinguished for 1,550 years. It is believed the flame used to burn in the city of Shiraz, a six-hour coach drive away.

In nearby Taft – 20 kilometres southwest of Yazd and surrounded by the highest mountains in central Iran – the weather is cooler. It is famous for the annual Ashoora ceremony, commemorating Imam Hussain, grandson of Prophet Mohammad.

As we headed by road towards Schiraz, we also stopped in the Abarkooh township, an ancient place that used to be situated on the Silk Road route. Just outside the city lies a huge Cyprus tree a Russian botanist estimated was 4,500 years old.

We drove on and on along terrain that is as awe-inspiring as it can be boring. High mountains and flat, sand roads for miles on end. No animals or humans were to be seen, bar the occasional heavy vehicle that drives past or some police post, literally in the middle of nowhere.

Then, after three hours or so vegetation starts to appear and, a little while later, whole fields covered in greenery and trees with farmers toiling their land.

In the Pars Province is Pasargadae, the first dynastic capital of the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great. It is also his final resting place. In this Unesco World Heritage Site, ruins still stand and one tall pillar marks the place where Cyrus II is thought to have drafted the first human rights charter. Because of this, some consider Pasargadae to be the birthplace of the United Nations.

From there we drove on to Schiraz, capital of the Pars Province. I wondered whether this was where the red wine grape got its name and I was given conflicting replies. An Iranian accompanying us said it did not but a foreigner who is well into food and drink assured me it did. Whatever, I raise a glass to this lovely modern city and, especially, to Persepolis – The City of Persians – the old ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, situated about 70 kilometres northeast of Schiraz.

This World Heritage Site, about an hour-long drive from Schiraz, was founded by King Darius. Alexander the Great had set fire to the place but many of the faces of the statues had been preserved, only to be ruined by the Arabs later.

What remains, notably the statues and base reliefs, edge in stone, literally, the power and the glory of the ancient city and its inhabitants. But the place is also mentioned as having led to the end of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. A lavish celebration he held there in October 1971 to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great was so expensive that inflation more than doubled. That was simply too much for many ordinary Iranians and public sentiment against the Shah kept growing, leading to his exile in the beginning of 1979.

In nearby Naqshi-e Rostam are the tombs, hewn in solid rock, of Xerxes, Darius the Great, Artaxeres I and Darius II. Film buffs would recall that Xerxes and his army of one million feature in the 2006 American production 300.

Sunburnt and exhausted, we headed towards the city and back to reality but not before encountering a family of nomads with their tents, goats and the occasional donkey who spend their lives continuously on the move. They were happy to see us stop and approach them and were more than cooperative when we asked whether we can film and photograph them. They even invited us into their tents and offered refreshments.

A similar experience with a big dose of human kindness and openness was that at the private University of Archaeology in Marvdasht, which offers tuition to 14,000 students.

We were “mobbed” by the students, welcoming enthusiastically on campus and asking us all sorts of questions, in English. “Ooh, I would love to live there,” a male student said when I was explaining where Malta is situated and what it is like.

Most of the girls – between 50 and 55 per cent of the students are female and classes are mixed – congregated around a six-foot something Italian book publisher who formed part of our group. In fact, he proved to be very popular among Iranian girls and ladies wherever we went.

The university is open to student exchanges and the young vice rector assured us the university always considered offers for exchange programmes, adding that such arrangements already existed.

In Schiraz, we were also taken to the tomb of poet Hafez where it becomes immediately evident that, even after seven centuries, his poems are still alive and people still seek solace in them.

“To us, he’s like a saint, a sort of spiritual father,” an Iranian lady visiting the tomb said, with tears in her eyes.

Another man of letters was Shaykh Sa’di whose instruction was and remains highly valued and considered a treasure of true wisdom.

It takes a little less than an hour to fly from Schiraz to Esfahan, capital of the Isfahan Province about 340 kilometres sought of Tehran.

This is where the guide told us: “If you are coming here, say you are going to Persia.” There is quite a mix of religious denominations living there and most of them can be seen on Imam Square, a Unesco World Heritage Site reputed to be the second largest after Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Not far from the square, a shop owner who can easily be mistaken for an Italian and possessing a sense of entrepreneurship that can put some of the world’s top bankers to shame explained the different types of carpets that exist. There are basically two types of knots: The Farsi and the Turkish know. “The Farsi knot is stronger,” he insists.

There are carpets manufactured by nomads and others made in the city. The nomads’ carpets usually feature what they see: mountains, vegetation, animals. The others are more often based on elaborate designs.

But how do you gauge the quality of a carpet? You must look at the back and see how fine the knots are. A fine example of this would be the so-called flying carpet, which has two faces. A flying carpet measuring one by 1.5 metres would sell at about $3,500. A normal carpet, having 179 knots per square centimetre and taking eight to nine months to complete, costs in the region of $2,000.

There are so many master artisans to visit in Esfahan as there are mosques and it never gets tiring or boring touring.

We took a late night flight from Esfahan to Tehran, still bubbling with life and chaotic traffic even if it was after 11 p.m. We were hosted to a dinner and we bid our farewells, some of us already thinking of way to return.

Matthew and I left the rest of the group at the airport. They were taking a flight to Rome via Ankara and the tall handsome book publisher would fly back home via Istanbul. We took a direct flight to Frankfurt.

The huge Boeing 747 was already packed when I boarded and squeezed myself onto a seat in the middle section of the cabin for the five-hour-long trip. As the fully-loaded plane took off at 3.20 a.m., I could notice most of the women on board removing their headscarf and letting their hair down.