Things to do in Western Iran
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Hezardasan
Hezardasan makes a valiant attempt at giving its cellar room that sofrakhane sonati feel, but the overall effect is a little too neat to be memorable. Its delicious qimeh nasar comes mounded into barberry rice.
reviewed
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A
Bazaar (covered bazaar)
The magnificent, labyrinthine covered bazaar covers some 7 sq km with 24 separate caravanserais and 22 impressive timches (domed halls). Construction began over a millennium ago, though much of the fine brick vaulting is 15th century. Upon entering one feels like a launched pinball, bouncing around through an extraordinary colourful maze, only emerging when chance or carelessness dictates.
There are several carpet sections, according to knot-size and type. The spice bazaar has a few shops still selling herbal remedies and natural perfumes. A couple of hat shops (Bazaar Kolahdozan) sell traditional papakh (Azari hats, from around IR100,000,) made of tight-curled astrakhan…
reviewed
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Takieh Mo’aven ol-Molk
Distinctively Shiite, Hosseiniehs are shrines where plays are acted out during the Islamic month of Moharram, commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hossein at Karbala (AD 680). The finest in Kermanshah is the 1913 Takieh Mo’aven ol-Molk. Enter down stairs, through a courtyard and domed central chamber decorated with grizzly scenes from the great Karbala battle. The shrine remains very much active, pilgrims kissing the doors and looking genuinely moved by the ‘footprint of Ali’ on the wall of the second courtyard. This is set amid tiles depicting a wacky gamut of images from Quranic scenes, to pre-Islamic gods including Shahnameh kings, European villages and local notables…
reviewed
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Hegmataneh Hill
In the mud beneath this scraggy low hill lies Hamadan’s ancient Median and Achaemenid city site. Small sections of the total area have been fitfully excavated by several teams over the last century, most extensively in the 1990s. The most interesting of several shed-covered ‘trenches’ allows you to walk above the excavations of earthen walls using plank walkways on wobbly scaffolding. The walls’ gold and silver coatings are long gone of course and it’s hard to envisage the lumpy remnants as having once constituted one of the world’s great cities. A nicely presented museum tries to fill the mental gap, showing some of the archaeological finds including large amphorae,…
reviewed
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B
Blue (Kabud) Mosque
Constructed in 1465, the Blue Mosque was among the most glorious buildings of its era. Once built, artists took a further 25 years to cover every surface with the blue majolica tiles and intricate calligraphy for which it’s nicknamed. It survived one of history’s worst-ever earthquakes (1727), but collapsed in a later quake (1773). Devastated Tabriz had better things to do than mend it and it lay as a pile of rubble till 1951, when reconstruction finally started. The brick superstructure is now complete, but only on the rear (main) entrance portal (which survived 1773) is there any hint of the original blue exterior. Inside is more blue with missing patterns laboriously…
reviewed
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C
Azarbayjan Museum
Entrance is through a great brick portal with big wooden doors guarded by two stone rams. Ground-floor exhibits include finds from Hasanlu, a superb 3000-year-old copper helmet and curious stone ‘handbags’ from the 3rd millennium BC. Found near Kerman these were supposedly symbols of wealth once carried by provincial treasurers. The basement features Ahad Hossein’s powerful if disturbing sculptural allegories of life and war. The top floor displays a re-weave of the famous Chelsea carpet, reckoned to be one of the best ever made. The original is so-called because it was last sold on King’s Rd, Chelsea, some 50 years ago, ending up in London’s Victoria & Albert…
reviewed
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Falak-Ol-Aflak
This unmissable eight-towered castle dominates the city centre from a rocky promontory. It looks especially dramatic when floodlit at night and offers extensive city views from the crenellated battlements. The entrance weaves up past sellers of tacky Lurish tourist trinkets into a courtyard where you can dress up in Bakhtiyari tribal garb for a posed photo. Above the inviting teahouse a grating covers the dizzyingly deep castle well (43m), but there are other ‘falling danger’ spots where a ‘disciplinarian’ watches out for your safety as well as your behaviour.
reviewed
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Valiasr's Karimkhan (Bozorg) Sq
About 4km east of Abaresan Crossing is the wealthy if architecturally neutral Valiasr District. While hardly SoHo, it's the nearest Tabriz comes to an entertainment district. The city's gilded youth sip espressos around Valiasr's Karimkhan (Bozorg) Sq and make a nightly passeggiata along pedestrianised Shahriyar St, misleadingly nicknamed Champs Elysées.
In just a few minutes here we met Iranian punks, tuft-bearded Metallica fans and even spotted a transvestite waggling his/her hips far more provocatively than any woman could dare to.
reviewed
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Buali Sina (Avicenna) Mausoleum
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) allows you to see the single-room museum of Avicenna memorabilia, his tombstone, a small library and a display on medicinal herbs. But the tower itself is better observed from a distance.
reviewed
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Alaviyan Dome
The Alaviyan Dome is now a misnomer, as the 12th-century green dome, immortalised in a Khaqani reference, has long since been removed. The dome-less brick tower remains famous for the whirling floral stucco added in the Ilkhanid era. This ornamentation enraptured Robert Byron in Road to Oxiana, but frankly it’s ugly. In the crypt (narrow steps down from the interior at the back) is the plain-blue tiled Alaviyan family tomb covered with votive Islamic embroidery.
reviewed
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D
Arg-e Tabriz
This huge brick edifice, an unmissable landmark, is a chunky remnant of Tabriz's early-14th-century citadel (known as 'the Ark'). Criminals were once executed by being hurled from the top of the citadel walls. Far-fetched local legend tells of one woman so punished who was miraculously saved by the parachute-like effect of her chador.
Ongoing construction of a stadium-sized Mosallah Mosque next door is reportedly undermining the Ark's foundations and access is usually impossible.
reviewed
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Jameh Mosque
A vaulted passage of the bazaar leads into the courtyard of the large Qajar-era Jameh Mosque. The off-line south iwan leads into a hall (currently under restoration) over which there’s an impressively large brick dome. The new north iwan is lavished with patterned blue tilework that continues on four of the mosque’s six minarets. Some areas are restricted to men only.
reviewed
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Chelokababi Tavakol
This would be the backpacker meeting place, if there were any backpackers. Excellent value Iranian food is served in an atmospheric once-grand old bathhouse that’s slightly gone-to-seed. Charming owner Ali Rahban looks somewhat like Dudley Moore, speaks good English and can rustle up eggplant delights for vegetarians. Head downstairs through white-framed doors with coloured glass panels.
reviewed
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E
Kourosh
Kourosh wins no prizes for décor but offers numerous typical Gilani dishes including dill-rich bagilah qotoq, zeitun parvarden (olives in walnut paste) and garlic mast. On a good day the mirza ghasemi (mashed eggplant, squash, garlic, tomato and egg, served with bread or rice) can be superb but the fesenjun (chicken with walnuts) is rather tart.
reviewed
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Homa
Combining the atmosphere of a teahouse with the calm elegance of an upmarket restaurant, Homa has embroidered tablecloths and blue-brick dining niches ranged around a gently trickling fountain. Though not a patch on homemade equivalents, the semi-sweet fesenjun (IR30,000) is ideally complemented by their acidic dugh (churned sour milk or yogurt mixed with water).
reviewed
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F
Poets’ Mausoleum
Shahriyar is now commemorated much more ostentatiously with the strikingly modernist Poets’ Mausoleum. Its angular interlocking concrete arches are best viewed across the reflecting pool from the south. The complex also commemorates over 400 other scholars whose tombs have been lost in the city’s various earthquakes.
reviewed
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G
Rasht Museum
Rasht Museum is small, but well presented in a 1930s house. Its mannequin displays illustrate Gilaki lifestyle, amid a selection of 3000-year-old terracotta riton drinking horns in the shape of bulls, rams and deer. Supping from such vessels supposedly endowed the drinker with the powers and skills of the animal depicted.
reviewed
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Gilan Rural Heritage Museum
The excellent Gilan Rural Heritage Museum is 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, mat-making, cloth-weaving) are displayed and there are tight-rope walking mini-shows.
reviewed
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Esther & Mordecai Tomb Tower
This vaguely Tolkeinesque, 14th-century tomb tower was once Iran’s most important Jewish pilgrimage site. These days visitors are few and far between and some of the Hebrew inscriptions have been repainted so often by those who evidently couldn’t understand them, that they have become stylised beyond readability.
reviewed
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Aminiha Hosseiniyeh
Tucked away in a walled rose garden is the well-preserved 1773 Aminiha Hosseiniyeh. It’s a private mansion that doesn’t look much from outside, but has a splendidly gaudy wood, glass and mirror interior and a refreshingly cool, brick vaulted basement. A great place to unwind and write up your diary in peace.
reviewed
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Jamshid Restaurant
Surveyed by a gigantic bronze eagle and huge samovar, this unusual dining room is cut in two by an artificial ‘stream’. Try the local speciality khoresht khalol (lamb stewed with almonds) rather than the three-skewer dandeh kabab (IR65,000), which is famous more for its excessive size than for its flavour.
reviewed
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H
Baliq
Fish, fish, fish. Fresh whole fish, fish kababs, fish köfte balls in the IR20,000 salad bar, fishing nets on the ceiling, little aquariums between the tables and even fish-shaped souvenir pens. Standards are excellent, the enticing décor includes log-and-rope chairs and a cave-wall trickling with water.
reviewed
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Sang-e Shir
A walrus-sized lump of rock eroded beyond recognition by the rubbing of hands over 2300 years. Supposedly once a lion, you'd never look twice at were it not the only surviving 'monument' from the ancient city of Ecbatana whose gates it once guarded. Some claim it was carved at the behest of Alexander the Great.
reviewed
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Chaykhuneh Baharestan
This atmospheric, if decidedly down-market 100% male teahouse is charmingly adorned with metalwork, sepia photos and Quranic murals. It’s ideal for a greasy fried-egg breakfast, cheap abgusht (aka dizi) lunch or a puff on the qalyan, and is populated by photogenically haggard old white-beards.
reviewed
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Delta Sofrakhane Sonati
Tea (IR5000) comes in ceramic Lalejin pots, women can smoke qalyan on carpeted bed-seats without undue attention and the chicken ‘biriyani’ comes on a flaming plate. Don’t miss the scrumptious kashka bademjan (IR12,000), eggplant paste with yoghurt, mint and roasted red peppers.
reviewed