Most places we went to in Iran were above amazing, all with their own delights and highlights, so it’s hard to pick a favourite. But if I had to, Yazd would certainly be vying for the prize!
Yazd, Iran
For starters there was the hotel we stayed in. It was cheap; $20 USD per night for a private room, with 3 toilet shower rooms shared with one other couple and a decent free breakfast. Ok the room was not soundproof at all but we are good sleepers so it didn’t bother us too much… and hey in a city with lots to see, who doesn’t want to be woken up at 6 or 7 in the morning with noise outside the door? š The best part of staying at Kohan hotel was the courtyard – it was just gorgeous! A pool surrounded by flowering trees with tables and shelters around the outside where you could relax, meet others, eat or work. On arrival Antony ate camel meat and I had a vegetarian meal (Kashk-e Bademjan with salat shirazi) from the hotel kitchen. Internet worked well in the courtyard and it was a lovely place to hang out when not out sightseeing.
Kohan Hotel, Inner Courtyard. Yazd, Iran.
Yazd’s old city is reportedly one of the oldest towns on earth… and that’s where we were staying. The view from our hotel roof of all the rooftop Badgirs (wind towers) was superb.
View from Kohan Hotel Roof, Yazd, Iran.
Enjoying a drink at a rooftop cafe in Yazd, Iran.
We loved ambling through the lanes and historic streets right near the hotel discovering things not in our guidebook, like a water mill and a rooftop cafe serving freshly squeezed pommegranate juice.
The Kushknoo water mill is from pre-Islamic times, located 22 metres below ground, with seven light catchers for light & ventilation (these have recently been restored). We just stumbled upon this amazing place and given I have a husband who just loves all things to do with water, dams, channels etc. it was the perfect place to explore!
We were given hard hats and able to head down steps and through the corridors to see the qanat, the place they kept animals, and the mill itself. What is intriguing is that this mill used water from 3 old and famous qanats- Zarch, Sadri & Elad Abad. (For those not in the know a QANAT is a ‘gently sloping underground channel with a series of vertical access shafts, used to transport water from an aquifer under a hill. QanÄts create a reliable supply of water for human settlements and irrigation in hot, arid, and semi-arid climates.’ Thanks Wikipedia).Ā
The Zarch qanat dates back more than 3000 years! Insane that we could see water flowing in it still… imagining how all those years ago someone was digging by hand the channel for the water. Incredibe what systems and technology were created by Persians in ancient times to cope with the harsh climate.Ā Qanats are still used today in Iran and elsewhere. If you, like Antony, are fascinated with water systems there’s some great info about qanats on the waterhistory.org website.
Lari house, Yazd
Not far from the mill is the elegant 150 year old Khan-e-Lari or Lari House. It was once a wealthy merchant’s house, with buildings surrounding a pretty courtyard. One particular room was surprising with pictures of European women, branching out on the ceiling, each picture surrounded by patterns made from mirrors. There was also stained glass windows in this room – it was very decorative!
Entrance to Water Museum, Yazd, Iran.
As mentioned above, Antony loves all things to do with water, so a visit to the Yazd Water Museum was at the top of our ‘things to see’ list. This was a fabulous place even if you aren’t especially interested in water. It is well laid out and a clear route marked to guide you around the museum. There are lots of photos, models and explanations in English along with relevant artefacts. And the building the museum is housed in is a restored mansion so it is just beautiful. We both really enjoyed it. Learning how they dug out qanats and how they work was very interesting.
The water museum was about a 20 min walk from the hotel, down a busy street to some of Yazd’s other attractions, like the Amir Chakhmaq complex, which was gearing up for the country’s president to visit the following day. Barriers were going up so the crowd could be divided into a women’s section and men’s section. The three storey facade has perfectly proportioned sunken alcoves and was quite stunning. An impressive place from which to address a crowd that’s for sure! (See top photo on this post, top right). We got treats from a bakery on the corner near this square and across the road from the water museum and sat and enjoyed them here.
Water museum, Yazd
Further along the road from the water museum is the Masjed-e Jameh (Friday mosque) with its incredibly tall and beautifully tiled entrance portal- one of the tallest in Iran. It has two 48m high miranets which makes it hard to photograph the whole entrance in one picture! When we arrived there was a boys choir positioned around the pool before the entrance portal. They were singing to recorded music and being filmed, rather curious. Built in the 15th century, the mosque had gorgeous mosaics- both outisde on the cupola and entrance and inside on the mihrab. There was a big courtyard and the Zarch qanat even runs underneath the mosque.
Friday Mosque entrance portal, Yazd
Friday mosque, Yazd. (Note the guy in the pool filming the boys singing)
When we first arrived in Yazd we heard drumming music coming from a building across from our hotel. I asked a local man if there were concerts in there. He said that the next night we could just turn up and watch – it was a kind of sport. So the next night we went – amazing! It turned out it was a Zurkhaneh – literally ‘a house of strength’ where men mix sport and religion in a kind of body building.
Zurkhaneh, Yazd
Normally women do not watch (and certainly never participate) but foreign women are exempted from this restriction. We were welcomed warmly as were another couple of tourists who wandered in. We were given tea and left to watch proceedings. It was so fascinating and such a privilege to be in a zurkhaneh, something that has been around for thousands of years and a real part of Iranian culture.
Zurkhaneh have been adapted throughout the centuries picking up values important to the Iranian civilisation of each time. What you get today is a mix of Islamic spirituality, i.e. Sufism and heroism of Iranian nationalism. It was just fascinating to watch the men (of varying ages and abilities) in a circular pit perform all kinds of physical exercises that Antony would have really found challenging. Their fitness, strength and stamina was impressive! There was a leader in the centre of the pit and one on the drum also doing the calling out/ singing. Every now and then everyone in the pit would repeat some kind of sentence. To the side of the pit were three young teenagers/ pre teens who were practising their spinning while the men in the pit worked with the clubs spinning them around and doing push up type exercises. At the end of the hour the youngsters joined the others demonstrating their spins in the middle of the pit. Was rather mesmerizing watching them.. such a cool experience!
Bagh-e Dolat Abad, a pavillion and gardens built in 1750, was once home to someone important. Although the gardens are UNESCO listed they really didn’t seem particularly exciting when we visited in March. Nice enough for a quick wander around.
The water down the middle with small fountains was lovely and the pavillion itself had beautiful latticework and stained glass windows.
The badgir (windtower) that cools the pavillion is the highest in Iran, over 33m tall, and was rebuilt when the original collapsed in the 1960s. It was nice to spend a little time here with the German couple we met in Kerman.
Bagh-e Dolat Abad
One evening we went wandering and had a very delicious dinner in a quiet restaurant near our hotel. They didn’t speak English and there didn’t seem to be a menu so we didn’t know what we would get… I just made the point (thanks to our phrase book) that I didn’t eat meat but Antony loved it. They came out with so many dishes, lots of fresh greens and salad, eggplant dish, spinach omlettes, meat, rice, stew, yoghurt, bread – it was good we were hungry! It was the most expensive meal we had in Iran but comparable to what we might pay at home for a normal meal out. And the sweet things we got with our cups of tea were so yummy! We ventured into another hotel and restaurant – a very pricey one- just to have a look around. It is kind of like a museum inside… and we went up on the roof and saw the badgirs all lit up. Yazd by day and night is a wonderful place to walk around!
Yazd is famous for its Zoroastrian sites which we also visited but I will write about those in a separate post. There are some fabulous places easily accessible as day trips from Yazd which I will cover in another post too as this one is already getting long! I tell you Yazd is fabulous…and it’s not just me who was impressed with the place. In the 13th Century Marco Polo described Yazd as ‘a very fine and splendid city and a centre of commerce’.
There is so much to see in and around Yazd! This fascinating city should be included in any trip to Iran.
Street Views, Yazd. (Even the banks look good!)