Things to do in Northeastern Iran
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Kuh-e Sangi
This small but abrupt rocky hill rises near Mashhad’s southern ring road (the ‘Kabul to Paris highway’). Sweeping views show just how huge Mashhad has become. Tastefully set rock steps lead up from a large ‘recreation complex’ featuring ponds, over-priced ice creams and lots of souvenir shops selling soapstone dizi pots and awful porcelain figurines. Horsecart rides do NOT take you up the mountain as they might imply but on a pointless eight-minute trot down some side streets. Within the park there’s a sweetly naive loop of pedal-car monorail for kids.
reviewed
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Carpet Museum
That's an image you'll find repeated as both carpet and giant wood-inlay works in the separate Carpet Museum, where rugs range from beautiful classics through to garish coral gardens and a Tabriz-made carpet-portrait of WWI bogey-man Kaiser Wilhelm II. Tying the staggering 30 million knots for Seven Beloved Cities took 14 years. Upstairs, beside the shoe-deposit counter, is a two-room Calligraphy Gallery displaying priceless Korans, many dating back over a millennium.
reviewed
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Carpet Bazaar
The wobbly, wooden-ceilinged old carpet bazaar is more commercial minded but slated for eventual demolition if the shrine’s expansion continues.
reviewed
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Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (Haram-e Razavi)
Imam Reza's Holy Shrine is enveloped in a series of sacred precincts collectively known as the Haram-e Razavi , or Haram for short. This magical city-within-a-city sprouts dazzling clusters of domes and minarets in blue and pure gold behind vast fountain-cooled courtyards and magnificent arched arcades. It's one of the marvels of the Islamic world whose moods and glories should be fully savoured more than once at varying times of day. Compare the orderly overload of dusk prayer-time to the fairy-tale calm of a floodlight nocturnal wander.
No bags or cameras are allowed within the complex, though curiously snapping photos with mobile phones is accepted. There are left-lugg…
reviewed
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Main Museum
Bequests and donations from the faithful fill the Haram’s fascinatingly eclectic museums. The Main Museum kicks off with chunks of now-superseded shrine-décor interspersed with contemporary sporting medals presented by pious athletes. The basement stamp collection includes a 1983 commemorative featuring the ‘Takeover of the US Spy Den’. The 1st-floor Visual Arts Gallery offers you the opportunity to shower money (or hats) down onto the top of the Holy Shrine’s fourth zarih tomb encasement (replaced in 2001). Amid seashells and naturalist landscape-paintings of Surrey, notice Mahmood Farshchian’s modern classic Afternoon of Ashura. It’s a grief-stricken depictio…
reviewed
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Boq'eh-ye Khajeh Rabi
The beautifully proportioned, blue-domed mausoleum Boq'eh-ye Khajeh Rabi commemorates an apostle of the prophet Mohammad. Coming to pay respects here was said to have been Imam Reza's 'main consolation' in coming all the way out to Khorasan. The tower took its present form after a 1612 rebuild, which added a band of interior Kufic inscriptions by master-calligrapher Ali Reza Abbasi.
The jolly floral motifs around it date from a Qajar redecoration. Surrounding the mausoleum is a large cemetery paved with thousands of tombstones. Burial here currently costs from around IR90,000. That gets you stacked four bodies deep for 30 years before you're dug up again; pay four times t…
reviewed
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Nader Shah Mausoleum
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Nader Shah is considered something of a historical tyrant. But here he’s a local hero for briefly returning Khorasan to the centre of a vast Central Asian empire. Nader’s horseback statue crowns his otherwise rather dour 1950s grey-granite mausoleum, which was designed to emulate the lines of a tent (reputedly Nader was born and died under canvas). A small museum displays guns, a rhino-hide shield and four-pointed hats that must have made Afshar-dynasty courtiers look like jesters.
reviewed
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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 glass) supposedly disorientated mosquitoes. The building is slated to become a museum incorporating the historic Vasir-e Hamam (bathhouse) behind.
reviewed
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Haram-e Razavi
Imam Reza’s Holy Shrine is enveloped in a series of sacred precincts collectively known as the Haram-e Razavi, or Haram for short. This magical city-within-a-city sprouts dazzling clusters of domes and minarets in blue and pure gold behind vast fountain-cooled courtyards and magnificent arched arcades. It’s one of the marvels of the Islamic world whose moods and glories should be fully savoured more than once at varying times of day.
reviewed
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Hezardestan Traditional Teahouse
Hezardestan is one of Iran’s most beautiful teahouse-restaurants. Carpets, samovars, antique qalyans, cushions and wooden benches are surrounded by walls adorned with scenes from Ferdosi’s Shahnamah. There’s live music most nights, the manager speaks fluent English and the food is pretty good including vegetarian possibilities. Just be prepared for hefty ‘service’ and ‘tea’ charges that can double the bill.
reviewed
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Mehdi Gholibek Hamam
In its shadow, Mehdi Gholibek Hamam is one of Iran’s most interesting and spacious bathhouse museums. The main delight is the wonderful central dome re-painted for centuries in multiple levels – most recently in 1922 with naive murals that feature anthropomorphic figures gallivanting between giant bicycles, a Russian vintage car, an early biplane and a curiously unconcerned- looking victim facing a firing squad.
reviewed
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Caravanserai Azizolaof
Lanes around the Haram's various entrances are full of tourist trinket sellers but also a selection of real markets. The run-down, century-old Caravanserai Azizolaof contains down-market electronics stalls run by Afghans. Hurry to see this area before it's all demolished as the Haram precinct plans to expand yet again.
reviewed
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Foreign Pilgrims Assistance Office
Friendly, multilingual staff at the Foreign Pilgrims Assistance Office can show you a 20-minute video about the Haram and shower you with books on all things Shiite. However, once you've visited this office there's no escape from the free, friendly but over-protective guide/minder they assign you.
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Hafez Restaurant
With attractive wrought iron and copper-work, this new, high-ceilinged eatery is a fine choice in the consulate area. For a taste of Central Asia, try their chelo estanboli (IR17,000), virtually identical to plov (an archetypal if fatty Uzbek lamb-and-rice dish).
reviewed
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Saroye Saeed
Mashhad is a great place to buy carpets. Saroye Saeed is a multi-unit carpet market which mostly aims at bulk dealers so prices can be excellent. It even has an interesting top-floor repair workshops and remarkably there seems to be no sales pressure.
reviewed
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Vitamin Sara
Come to this unpretentious juice-shop for Mashhad’s best maajun (IR12,000), a fabulous mush of crushed walnuts, pistachios, ice cream, cream, banana and honey, all whizzed through the orgasmatron to form one of Iran’s most spectacular desserts.
reviewed
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Chaikhaneh Morshed
Easily-missed steps southeast of Dadgar Alley lead up to this semi traditional teahouse. Décor is tasteful apart from the cigarette-smoking stuffed lamb. The boisterous clientele of rockabilly-style 20-something males might get over-excited by a female presence.
reviewed
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Sorena Restaurant
- Sari, Iran
- Restaurants › Other
Bright, spacious middle-class kababi with big fireplaces and fake roses on the tables. Fish dishes are sizeable but laced with bones. Vampires should avoid zirtoshi, a side-dish of whole pickled garlic (IR5000).
reviewed
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Bazaar-e Fash
Bazaar-e Fash, is a multi-unit carpet market mostly aimed at bulk dealers so prices can be excellent. It even has an interesting top-floor repair workshop and remarkably there seems to be no sales pressure.
reviewed
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Friday Book Market
The Friday book market is good for English-language magazines including the Economist (IR10,000). Blind peddlers outside the Haram near Falakeh Ab sell excellent city maps (IR6000).
reviewed
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Bazar-e Reza
Upstairs in the 800m-long Bazar-e Reza, jewellery stalls proffer turquoise (mined at nearby Neishabur) but their sales pitch is often more impressive than their gems.
reviewed
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Mausoleum
In its own little traffic roundabout, Sheikh Mohammed Hakim Mo’men’s modest, Safavid-era mausoleum isn’t very green but makes a useful landmark.
reviewed
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Kebabi Etminar
Bog-standard local eatery whose IR7000 nun-o panir breakfast includes walnuts, raisins and unusually tasty cheese with bread and tea. Kababs from IR4400.
reviewed
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Atlas Hotel Restaurant
For steak and chips in a middle class setting, this comfortable hotel restaurant opens longer than most and the coffeehouse downstairs has an espresso machine.
reviewed
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Gonbad-e-Sabz
In its own little traffic roundabout, Sheikh Mohammed Hakim Mo'men's modest, Safavid-era mausoleum, Gonbad-e-Sabz isn't very green but makes a useful landmark.
reviewed
