Must-see attractions in Southeastern Iran

Kerman’s magnificent 'Sartasari' ('end-to-end') Bazaar is one of the oldest and most memorable trading centres in Iran. Its main thoroughfare stretches…

With lush date-palm groves, domed mud-brick houses, carpet-saddled camels and a distant backdrop of arid mountain ridges, it's hard to imagine a more…

One of Iran's most impressive fortress-citadels, the Arg's vast adobe walls top a gentle slope directly south of central Rayen. Inside is a castle within…

A Unesco site, this troglodyte village is a series of over 400 cave-houses with a total of more than 2500 kiche rooms burrowed into the gently sloping…

Walking to and exploring this mountaintop fortress ruin is the highlight of a visit to Qa'en, especially if you time your descent to coincide with sunset,…

The physical and spiritual heart of Mahan is filled by the impressive mausoleum complex of dervish-mystic and poet Shah Ne’matollah Vali, who died in 1431…

The Kaluts is a large area in which the rough, rocky desert has been sculpted by millennia of wind erosion into long lines of photogenic formations. Much…

The 'contemporary' section of this wide-ranging gallery is a selection of thought-provoking photographic and illustrative social commentary in the rear…

Where Shohada St approaches the arid crags that abruptly mark the city's eastern edge sits this hefty octagonal structure of mysterious provenance. Some…

This historic bathhouse is now a museum in which wax dummies illustrate the workings of a traditional hammam. Signage is a little garbled ('AD' dates…

Arriving at these handsome gardens is like being beamed onto a different planet. One second you’re in the arid semidesert, the next it’s all flowing…

With prominent blue-and-white-tiled roofs dating from the late Qajar period, this attractive mausoleum is the last resting place of several Kerman…

Possibly Iran's most mind-blowing work of contemporary art was haphazardly created over decades by deaf/non-verbal shepherd Darvish Khan Esfandiarpur, who…

Wrapping a conical crag in ruined fortress ramparts, Qaleh Dokhtar is a dramatic, if well camouflaged, castle. From its summit you can appreciate its…

Around Qa'en you can find several old villages of low, domed, mud hovels, which have been almost entirely abandoned as folks moved to new, more sanitary…

The expansive Imam Mosque courtyard covers 6000sqm with tiled iwans (barrel-vaulted halls) on three sides. But it's the main southwest iwan that's the…

Although possibly 9th-century in origin, the main core of Qa'en's bulky central mosque predominantly dates from a 1394 rebuild funded by a Timurid…

As you walk east into the Bazar-e Sartasari from Tohid Sq, turn left at the first 12-sided charsoq (junction) to find shops selling shiny copper-plated…

Birjan's adobe-plastered fortress has been comprehensively restored and looks particularly impressive at night when glowing with the lights of the…

Old Esfandiar feels like an Indiana Jones discovery, a virtually deserted tight-packed village of crumbling old buildings – several three storeys high –…