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Top choice in Mashhad
Hezardestan is one of Iran’s most beautiful teahouse-restaurants, with a museum-like basement full of of carpets, samovars, antique metalwork and countless knicknacks around a small fountain. The menu is limited to ghormeh, chicken kabab, dizi or mashed halim bademjan (lamb and mashed aubergine). Beware when ordering tea: while a cup costs IR23,000 the tea 'set' costs ten times that (IR230,000).
There’s live music most nights. The manager speaks some English.
0.94 MILES
Imam Reza’s Holy Shrine is enveloped in a vast series of sacred precincts collectively known as the Haram-e Razavi, or Haram for short. This magical city…
0.97 MILES
Amid tearful prayer and meditation, the climax to any Mashhad pilgrimage is touching and kissing the zarih (gold-latticed cage), which covers Imam Reza’s…
0.98 MILES
All a-dazzle with intricate, mirror-faceted tiling, this former courtyard is now enclosed and entirely covered by a sparkling ceiling held in place by…
3.85 MILES
This beautifully proportioned, blue-domed mausoleum commemorates an apostle of the prophet Mohammad who later exiled himself to Khorasan to avoid tensions…
1.03 MILES
This eclectic museum kicks off with chunks of now-superseded shrine decor interspersed with contemporary sporting medals presented by pious athletes,…
0.68 MILES
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…
20.67 MILES
Kang's foremost sight is the village itself, especially when seen from the southeast. Probably the best viewpoint to appreciate the vertically piled…
0.72 MILES
Just outside the Haram complex’s official limits sits this splendid 15th-century mosque, originally built as a Timurid-era tomb. It is famous for its mo…
0.45 MILES
The small, 17th-century blue-domed tomb of scholar and mystic Momen Mashhadi forms a pretty sight in the middle of a traffic circle. The last remaining…
0.68 MILES
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…
0.72 MILES
Just outside the Haram complex’s official limits sits this splendid 15th-century mosque, originally built as a Timurid-era tomb. It is famous for its mo…
0.74 MILES
The main delight of this spacious museum in a former bathhouse is the central dome's 1922 naive murals featuring anthropomorphic figures gallivanting…
6. Molla Hashem Ardebilehi Mosque
0.8 MILES
With its eye-catching clock tower, the Molla Hashem Mosque is a useful landmark at the north edge of the Haram area.
0.87 MILES
The Haram's northwestern entrance is a work in progress, with beautiful twin minarets under construction above the portal.