The National Jewels Museum in Tehran is located in the basement of the Bank Melli, close to Ferdowski Square. It is without doubt both one of the most impressive and one of the most paranoid museums that I have ever visited and an absolute must-see if you visit Tehran.

Blaming Germany for more than just nicking the sunbeds

We gathered on the street near the bank, just across the street from the German Embassy. Directly across the road from the Embassy building there's a memorial to the many Iranians killed by poisoned gas during the Iran-Iraq war. The text on the monument tells Germany that Iran will never forget that it was German companies who sold the weapons and technology to Saddam Hussein which he used to kill so many Iranians (and of course, his own people too).

Why do I mention this? Well it might be perverse of me but it's one of the things I quite like about the post-Revolutionary Iranian system - they just don't give a damn about being rude and offensive. Can you imagine the British building something like that? The monument would be 6 inches tall and have tiny writing in invisible ink saying 'If it's all the same to you, we think that what you did was rather a poor show so please don't do it again'. Forgive me - I digress.

Our Visit

There is a point to this though and that's that if you want to see the National Jewels, it's a good idea to get there nice and early before the crowds build up. Hence, we were outside the bank half an hour before we could get in and we had plenty of time to check out the anti-German monument.

As the time to open drew nearer, we moved closer to the bank's gates to make sure we got in when the vaults first opened. The paranoid security at the bank goes beyond anything I've seen before and I don't have a single photograph of even the outside. Other tourists who dared to attempt to surreptitiously fire off a sneaky shot or two were instantly swooped on by security guards.

We lined up to go in and deposited our bags and coats at the cloakroom. I kept my notebook and pen, planning to take notes of what I saw, draw the layout, maybe prepare a plan for an Oceans Eleven-style heist. It was pointless; my pen and notebook were confiscated before I could get into the vault. In single-file crocodile we inched our way down the stairs, past security and through the foot-thick doors of the vault into an Aladdin's Cave of the most over-the-top excess and sparkling goodies. The first major exhibit is the Peacock Throne, a large gaudy and rather ugly piece that was used by many of the Shahs and took its design from a Moghal Indian throne.

There are guided tours available inside the vaults and I really do recommend to join one if you can. If you rely on the limited signage inside the exhibition you'll miss a lot of the most fascinating detail. We latched on to a good looking young man who knew his stuff and learned about some of the most important pieces in the collection as well as getting a good indoctrination into how rotten the royal families of the past had been. Just imagine spending money on ruby-encrusted ornaments to help keep the flies off your horses' faces and eating off solid gold and silver plates whilst your own people starved and died. Yes, it's true, I got the message but the worthy sentiments couldn't really compete with the most outrageous festival of 'bling'. If you can afford a bejewelled tail ring for your favourite horse, then why not? There were plenty of investment bankers who probably thought they missed a trick not getting one.

There are 'every day' ornaments for household use, crowns and jewels for state occasions and masses of the most fabulous gifts received from all over the world (I could happily have popped the Faberge cockroach in my pocket and I'm sure nobody would have missed it).

Probably the most famous piece in the museum is the Darya-i-Nur, the world's biggest pink diamond and 'sister' of the much better known Koh-I-Nur. It is - as you'd imagine - big and a bit pink; but in all honestly it's not that beautiful. If you were looking for a winner for the 'ugliest piece in show' it would have to go to the 19th Century Globe of Jewels which was commissioned by the Qajar Shah, Nasir al-Din as a handy way to use up some of the zillions of loose gems he had lying about the place. It contains over 50,000 carats of precious gems and represents a style of ugliness more commonly seen nowadays in the jewellery of your most successful gangsta-rapper/drug dealer/pimp.

I'm told that the Jewels Museum is the most popular attraction in Tehran and I can believe it. I'm not sure if the chattering excited school parties that filled the vaults during our visit were getting the post-revolutionary sentiment or just enjoying the shiny sparkly stuff and having fun setting off the alarms, but after a while we were absolutely stuffed in like sardines shuffling around the exhibition. For 30 000 Rials (about £2) it's one of the more expensive places to visit in Tehran but it's well worth going if you can cope with never looking at your own jewellery in quite the same way afterwards.

I've seen the Russian state jewels and the UK Crown Jewels but for me, this place beats both.