Kermanshah is a major city located about 320 miles (515km) south west of Tehran by road. It had been in my mind a long time to visit this city, and nearby Bisotun. The journey should take about six hours. On Monday I telephoned the Parsian Hotel (website in Farsi) and made a reservation for three […]
On Thursday morning I went with my driver Milad to the Bisotun, about a 40 minute easy ride from Kermanshah. Bisotun is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This was to be the highlight of my trip to Kermanshah. We drove first to Sahneh (صحنه) so I could see a smaller town in Kermanshah. […]
Pasargadae – Capital of the Achaemenid Empire One day I took a taxi from Shiraz to Pasargadae, located about 85 miles north east of Shiraz by road. I didn’t take an organised tour, preferring to travel alone. (On later trips to Iran I started to use tour guides, and wish I had done so earlier). […]
Shiraz is a large city in the south of Iran, and the capital of Fars Province. Its early roots are perhaps 4,000 years old. I flew on a short flight from Mehrabad Airport in Tehran to Shiraz (flights are cheap in Iran, and distances can be long and time-consuming by road), and stayed at the […]
My limited preparatory reading told me that although Esfahan’s roots go back more than 4,500 years, it was really during the Safavid Era that Esfahan came to prominence for which it is still famous. It was Shah Abbas who moved the capital of Iran from Qazvin to Esfahan, invested heavily in his new capital, and […]
This is series of several posts about my first visit to Iran. On the 2nd of June (12 Khordad) 2011 I arrived at Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) flying with now-defunct British Midland Airways, arriving at almost 4am. I stayed at the Laleh Hotel which is roughly in the centre of Tehran. I had emailed […]