Destination: Iran
LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL ITINERARY INFORMATION
Itinerary: The cradle of pre-islamic religions
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TWO WEEKS / OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN WESTERN IRAN
Fire your imagination with millennia of religious history and myth. Start in ancient Shush, visiting the tomb of the Jewish hero Daniel as well as the nearby Choqa Zanbil, a magnificent 3000-year-old Elamite ziggurat (stepped pyramid). Climb into the mountains along the Babylonian ‘Royal Road’ via Kermanshah and Tyuserkan to Hamadan (ancient Ecbatana) to see the tomb of biblical Jewish Queen Esther. Alternatively, from Kermanshah (via Paveh) roller-coaster the bumpy hairpins of the Howraman valley, where the spectacularly set Howraman-at-Takht holds the last extant Mithraic midwinter festival. Further north, amid idyllic rural villages, explore the lonely ruins of Takht-e Soleiman, once the world’s greatest Zoroastrian fire-temple complex.
David Rohl’s book Legend claims that the area around bustling Tabriz is the historical Garden of Eden, and that Mt Sahand, above lovely Kandovan village, is the Old Testament’s Mountain of God. Northwest of Tabriz is Bazargan, from where Mt Ararat (Noah’s Ark crash landing spot) is clearly visible. Nearby Jolfa, in the beautiful valley of the Aras River (the Bible’s Gihon), charming Church of St Stephanos was originally founded just a generation after Christ. To the east of Tabriz, around Ardabil, is Genesis’s Land of Nod guarded by the magnificent volcanic peak of Mt Sabalan, the metaphorical fire-sword of the Cherubim.
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