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Khaneh Kolbadi
The restored 125-year-old Khaneh Kolbadi is reminiscent of an 18th-century khan’s palace. Thick walls kept the lower floor warm in winter while the light, bright upper floor could be opened to through drafts for hot summers. Its orosi windows (wood-framed puzzles of multicoloured g
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Kandovan
Reminiscent of Cappadocia (Turkey), remarkable Kandovan is a photogenic settlement of troglodyte homes and storage barns carved out of curiously eroded rocks. These sit above a newer lower village like a conference of stone ice-cream cones. Scrambling along steep, narrow paths betw
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Green Palace
At the uphill end of the complex, the classical-looking Green Palace was built at the end of the Qajar era and extensively remodelled by the Pahlavis. Reza Shah lived here but slept on the floor in traditional style. Its the more beautiful of the complexs two palaces, perhaps becau
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Other Mausolea & Tomb Towers
Hamadan’s icon is the BuAli Sina (Avicenna) Mausoleum , a 1954 tower that looks something like a vast, unfinished concrete missile. It is loosely modelled on Qabus’s 1000-year-old tower in Gonbad-e Kavus, which BuAli probably saw inaugurated. Paying the entry fee (entry from west)
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Gilan Rural Heritage Museum
Many more traditional Gilani cottages have been reassembled in the grounds of this excellent museum 18km south of Rasht (2km off the Qazvin highway). Six full homesteads complete with rice barns are already ‘active’ in 150 hectares of woodland. On open days, local crafts (thatching
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Holy Shrine of Imam Khomeini
When future generations look back on the historical periods of Iran, the early years of the Islamic Republic will be remembered as a time of great endeavour on the building front. This, the resting place of His Holiness Imam Khomeini, is the grandest of those endeavours. But while
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Boq’e
About 1km towards Mashhad, the Boq ’ e-ye Hordokieh is a massive brick-domed 14th-century mausoleum that looks especially impressive when floodlit at dusk. There are several theories as to the structure’s purpose. The most popular (and least likely) is that it was a prison for the
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Choqa Zanbil Ziggurat
One of Iran’s Unesco World Heritage sites, Choqa Zanbil’s magnificent brick ziggurat is the best surviving example of Elamite architecture anywhere. Even if you’re not a fan of ancient ruins, the great bulk and splendid semi-desert isolation of Choqa Zanbil can’t fail to impress. A
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Traditional Houses
Hiding behind the town’s high mud-brick walls are hundreds of large traditional houses built by wealthy merchants, monuments to the importance of Kashan as a Qajar-era commercial hub. Built during the 19th century, most have long since been carved up or are literally turning to dus
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Imamzadeh Abdullah
Visible from the minibus as you arrive from Ahvaz, this shrine has a white pinecone of a central tower reminiscent of Daniel’s tomb in Shush. A gory local tale records a woman beheading her own son to swap his head for the skull of a long-dead holy man, which is now enshrined here
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Archaeological Site
The archaeological site occupies the whole southern flank of modern Shush. To the right as you enter, the landscape is entirely dominated by the Chateau de Morgan . On the site of an Elamite acropolis, this crenellated masterpiece looks like an Omani desert fortress but was in fact
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Qaleh Rudkhan
This very impressive Seljuk-era mountain fortress covers the top of an idyllic wooded butte ringed by a curl of forested mountain. The brick rampart-ruins are relatively complete, with many photogenic towers, arches and wall sections calcified white with age or tufted with wild flo
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Moshtari
The attractive Moshtari-ye Moshtaq Ali Shah is the mausoleum for Sufi mystic Moshtaq Ali Shah, and other Kerman notables. Moshtaq Ali Shah was renowned for his singing and is apparently responsible for adding the fourth string to the setar (which literally means ‘three strings’). H
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Imam Khomeini Mosque
The Imam Khomeini Mosque is right inside the Tehran bazaar and is very much a working mosque and one of the largest and busiest in Tehran. The building itself dates from the early 18th century but the real reason you come here is to see Islam in action. The courtyard is accessed fr
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Ferdosi Mausoleum
Domestic tourists flock to the Ferdosi Mausoleum , set in its own park and topped by a classically styled stone cenotaph. The current mausoleum only dates from 1964 but there’s been a tomb of sorts here since Ferdosi’s death in AD 1020. He was originally interred in his own garden
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Tarikhuneh Mosque
This is a unique, partly ruined mud-brick structure with 18 extraordinarily sturdy rear columns that date from about AD 760. That reputedly makes this the second-oldest mosque in Iran, possibly having started life as a Zoroastrian palace-temple. The broken columns and partly renova
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Bandiyan Archaeological Site
The sprawling town has one specialist attraction, the Bandiyan Archaeological Site , where unusually well-preserved stucco mouldings in white gypsum depict faces and floral patterns on wall and column stumps. Experts believe it was once a particularly fine Sassanian fire-temple com
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Alamut Castle
The region’s greatest attraction is the fabled ruin of Alamut Castle , Hasan-e Sabbah’s famous fortress site. The site is a dramatic crag rising abruptly above the pleasant, unpretentious little cherry-growing village of Gazor Khan. The access path starts about 700m beyond the vill
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Shah Abbas Caravanserai
Central Neishabur is a rather unexciting place, but very close to Khayyam Sq, the restored Shah Abbas Caravanserai hosts souvenir shops, the Sofrakhane Sonati Abashah traditional teahouse and a small Nature Museum ; ask at the teahouse if the local speciality of rhubarb is in seaso
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Imam Mosque
The expansive Imam Mosque is worth a look specifically if you’re interested in the process of rehabilitating old buildings. Dating from the early Islamic period, restoration work has uncovered the remains of a fine mihrab (niche inside a mosque indicating the direction of Mecca) be
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