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Museum of the Islamic Period
This museum had been closed for some time when we passed, but staff assured us it was due to reopen in 2008. When it does, you'll find a modern building containing two floors of exhibits from a selection of Islamic arts, including calligraphy, carpets, ceramics, woodcarving, stone carving, miniatures, brickwork and textiles.
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National Jewels Museum
Owned by the Central Bank but actually housed underneath the central branch of Bank Melli, this museum is probably the biggest tourist drawcard in Tehran. If you've already visited the art gallery at the Golestan Palace you will have seen the incredible jewellery with which the Safavid and Qajar monarchs adorned themselves. Come here to gawp at the real things.
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National Museum of Iran
The modest National Museum of Iran is no Louvre, but it is chock-full of Iran's rich history and should be on every visitor's list of things to see in Tehran. The contents will probably mean more to you if you come here after you've seen the main archaeological sites - particularly Persepolis - so you might want to wait until the end of your trip.
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Negar Khane
The Negar Khane displays a fine collection of Qajar-era art. It was the brainchild of Nasser al-Din Shah, who'd been particularly captivated by European museums. Especially interesting are the portraits of the shahs wearing the jewels and crowns you can see in the National Jewels Museum, and pictures of everyday life in 19th-century Iran by Kamal ol-Molk and Mehdi. Women were certainly wearing chadors back then, too. The difference is that the men were also swaddled in three layers of clothing. Well worth a look.
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Niyavaran Palace Museum
The Niyavaran Palace Museum is where Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family spent most of the last 10 years of royal rule. It's set in five hectares of landscaped gardens and has four separate museums (Sahebqaranieh, Jahan-Nama Museum & Gallery, Niyavaran Palace, and Ahmad Shahi Pavilion) - tickets must be bought individually at the main gate.
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Park-e Jamshidiyeh
Park-e Jamshidiyeh climbs steeply up the lower reaches of the Alborz Mountains and offers a clean and relatively quiet atmosphere in which to enjoy the views and escape the smog. It's the sort of place you could happily while away an entire afternoon sipping tea and watching the lights of this huge city slowly come to life - though the prices of food might give you indigestion.
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Park-e Laleh
Near the centre of Tehran, Park-e Laleh is one of those places that is more than the sum of its parts. Certainly, it is a well-designed green space, but its location amid so much traffic makes the park a real oasis. As you wander through, perhaps on your way to the adjoining Carpet Museum or Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, you'll notice plenty of young Tehranis refining their flirting techniques over soft-serve ice creams. It's a great place for people-watching.
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Park-e Mellat
Many Tehranis say Park-e Mellat is their favourite in-town getaway, and if you're here around dusk on any spring or summer afternoon you'll find plenty of people enjoying the shaded areas around a small lake. On weekend nights you'll find just as many young people cruising up and down Valiasr Ave, several to a car, showing off as they flirt and swap phone numbers through car windows.
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Park-e Shahr
If you're staying in southern Tehran and need a break from the traffic, head straight for Park-e Shahr where you can go ice skating (when it's cold enough), take a boat trip on the tiny lake (in summer) and enjoy tea or qalyan (water pipe) at the laid-back Sofre Khane Sonnati Sangalag year-round. It's also a great place to just sit and watch Tehranis relaxing.
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Reza Abbasi Museum
Named after one of the great artists of the Safavid period, the Reza Abbasi Museum showcases Iranian art from ancient times and the Safavid-era paintings of Abbasi himself. If you like Iranian art, it's one of the best and most professionally run museums in the country.
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Sa'd Abad Museum Complex
The Sa'd Abad Museum Complex was once the royal summer home and is set on 104 hectares of spectacular mountainside parkland. There are more than 10 buildings scattered around the site and to see them all you'll need at least three hours; combining a visit here with lunch in nearby Darband is a good idea. (If pushed for time, the White and Green Palaces are the most highly recommended.)
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Sarkis Cathedral
In case you assume that Islam has a monopoly on Iranian life, visit Sarkis Cathedral. Built between 1964 and 1970, it's interesting not so much for its beauty but because of what it is and where it is. Sarkis Cathedral is by far the most visible and important non-Islamic religious building in Tehran. The area immediately to the south is the Armenian quarter, the centre of a still-thriving community.
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Seyhoun Art Gallery
In its fourth decade as a sponsor of young Iranian contemporary artists, Seyhoun has regular exhibitions of painting, photography, sculpture and graphic art in its distinctive, black-fronted gallery.
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Shams-Al Emarat
Shams-Al Emarat, at the end of the garden, is an imposing structure and was the tallest palace of its day, designed to blend European and Persian architectural traditions. Born of Nasser al-Din Shah's desire to have a palace that afforded him a panoramic view of the city, it was designed by master architect Moayer al-Mamalek and built between 1865 and 1867. A sequence of mirrored and tiled rooms display a collection of photographs, together with furniture and vases given to the shahs by European monarchs, especially the French.
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Shohada Museum
The Shohada Museum has rolling exhibitions of photographs, usually from the Iran-Iraq War or the 1979 revolution. Located diagonally opposite the US Den of Espionage.
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Silk Road Gallery
Silk Road's primary focus is photographic art, but it also delves into other media. It's professionally run and a pleasure to visit.
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Talar-e Almas
The tiny Talar-e Almas displays a range of decorative arts - especially 18th- and 19th-century French ceramics - in a room with red walls and a tiled floor. It's not the most riveting room in the palace. The teahouse underneath was closed when we visited.
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Tehran Bazar
In Iran a bazaar is much more than just a place to stock up on a few essential shopping items. The maze of bustling alleys (where cartographers seem never to have fully conquered) and the bazaris (the men who run the stalls) make Tehran Bazar a fascinating, if somewhat daunting, place to explore. Traders have been hawking their wares on this site for nearly 1000 years, but most of what you see today is less than 200 years old.
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Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
On the western side of Park-e Laleh, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is housed in a striking concrete modernist building constructed during the shah's rush to build modern landmarks in the 1970s. Contrary to all the preconceptions of Iran, here is a collection of art (not always modern and rarely contemporary) by Iranian artists and some of the biggest names of the last century.
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Tehran University
At the centre of political change in Iran, Tehran University is a fascinating place to wander around. There is, however, a ban on foreign non-students entering but its enforcement is haphazard. If you're worried, just hang around the front gate (entrance is on Enqelab Ave) for a few minutes and you'll be 'adopted' by someone keen to practise their English.
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The Film Museum of Iran
The Film Museum of Iran is housed in a Qajar-era mansion built by Shah Nasir od-Din for his daughter. It has well-displayed exhibits of equipment, photos and posters from Iran's century-old movie industry. It's interesting, even if you are not well-versed in Iranian film, and the building is fascinating.
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The Film Museum of Iran Cinema
This sublime cinema seats 121 people, has moulded plaster ceilings and screens new and classic Iranian films. If you ask nicely they will turn on subtitles in the language of your choice (assuming languages are available). The shop sells hard-to-find Iranian films on DVD and the chic café is the ideal place for post-film contemplation. Look for the street with a garden down the middle and a sign to Bahoner Library.
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The Peacock Throne
There has long been confusion about the origins of the Peacock (or Naderi) Throne that now sits in the National Jewels Museum. The real story is this: In 1798 Fath Ali Shah ordered a new throne to be built. His artists made quite a job of it, encrusting the vast throne that looks more like a bed with 26,733 gems.
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US Den of Espionage
More than any other single building in Iran, the former US embassy in Tehran (and the events emanating from it) have had a dramatic and profound influence on the recent history of this country and, indeed, the whole Middle East. From a bunker beneath the embassy building at the junction of Taleqani Ave and Mofatteh St, CIA operatives orchestrated a coup d'etat in 1953 that brought down the government of Mohammad Mossadegh.
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White Palace
What is now called the White Palace was built between 1931 and 1936 and served as the Pahlavi summer residence. The two bronze boots outside are all that remain of a giant statue of Reza Shah - he got the chop after the revolution.
