Former capital of the Safavid Dynasty, Isfahan became the seat of Shah Abbas the Great in 1598, and at its zenith blossomed into of the most magnificent and cosmopolitan cities in history. Visitors from Mughal India and Europe were dazzled…

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Kashan, roughly midway between Tehran and Isfahan, makes a delightful stop on the journey across Iran’s central plateau. Long renowned as a carpet weaving centre (visits to workshops are possible), it is equally famous for its crop of grand…

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In the southeast of the country on the edge of the great Dasht-e Lut Desert, Kerman was historically an important crossroads dominating trade routes to Afghanistan and India. It retains a particularly fine mud-brick old town, at whose heart…

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Iran is filled with awe-inspiring mosques, and by the time you get to Mahan chances are you will have seen quite a few of them. The shrine of the revered Sufi mystic-poet Ne’mutallah Vali Kermani, however, has a more tranquil and spiritual…

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A major desert city with a population of over 75,000, Meybod offers a compelling stopover on the journey to or from Yazd. Its standout monument is the enigmatic Narenj Castle – a pile of eroded adobe ramparts and bastions lording it in spec…

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At the start of the old Safavid pilgrimage route across the desert to Mashhad, this crumbling mud-walled town ranks among the most picturesque in Iran. Its most distinctive building is an ancient mosque with an unusual octagonal minaret, on…

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Visits to Persepolis are nearly always combined with a detour to this extraordinary necropolis, where a collection of colossal reliefs dating from the Achaemenid, Sassanid and Elamite periods are carved into a cliff face – one of the most a…

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Pasargadae was the Achaemenid capital before the foundation of Persepolis, and is famous today as the site of the marble tomb of Cyrus the Great (558–530BC), which sits on a high, stepped plinth on a river plain near the hilltop fortress of…

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Persepolis, also known as ‘Parseh’, was the seat of the Achaemenid empire, whose power peaked under Darius I and his son, Xerxes I, but was ultimately brought to a violent halt when Alexander the Great sacked the city in 330BC. Today, its r…

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Set against its backdrop of rugged desert mountains, with a foreground of poplar trees and fruit orchards, the red-brick village of Abyaneh forms one of the signature sights of central Iran. The spread of cuboid houses, which spill in drama…

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The second most sacred place in Iran after Mashhad, Qom lies a few hours’ drive southwest of Tehran and is revered by Shia Muslims as the site of Fatima’s shrine, the Hazrat-e Ma’sumeh, whose golden dome and twin minarets tower over the cit…

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This walled, mud-brick citadel outside Kerman is similar to the ancient citadel of Bam, which was destroyed by an earthquake in December 2003 (and is currently being rebuilt by the Iranian government). Well preserved, and in a truly spectac…

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