Three routes
across the plateau.

The classical archaeological tour. Fly in to Shiraz (international flights mostly via Doha, Dubai, or Istanbul; via Tehran in low season). The route follows roughly the line of the old Achaemenid royal road between Persepolis and Susa, with the desert detour through Yazd added for the Zoroastrian heritage. Most of it is two-lane highway in fair condition. The Choqa Zanbil-to-Susa leg is in Khuzestan, which is closer to the Iraqi border and may require local guidance for the latest security advice.

Day 1 — Arrival in Shiraz. Recover. Walk the Vakil Bazaar in the late afternoon. Dinner at Sharzeh, the canonical Shirazi restaurant.

Day 2 — Shiraz. Tombs of Saadi and Hafez. Pink Mosque (early, for the light). The Karim Khan citadel.

Day 3 — Pasargadae. The tomb of Cyrus. Half-day, then on to Persepolis.

Day 4 — Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam. Full day at Persepolis; afternoon at the rock tombs.

Day 5 — Drive Shiraz to Yazd. About 450 km via Abarkuh (stop at the four-thousand-year-old cypress).

Days 6–7 — Yazd. The old city, the fire temple, the Towers of Silence on the outskirts.

Days 8–9 — Drive Yazd to Ahvaz. A long crossing of the central plateau. Overnight in Esfahan or Shushtar.

Day 10 — Choqa Zanbil and Susa. Day trip from Ahvaz.

Day 11 — Shushtar. The Sasanian hydraulic system (UNESCO). Roman-era engineering.

Day 12 — Fly home from Ahvaz.

The slow route across the central plateau, taking in the major Safavid, Ilkhanid, and Timurid foundations. Possible by overnight train (Tehran-Isfahan, Yazd-Kerman, Tehran-Mashhad) as an alternative to driving; the trains are punctual and the sleeping compartments are comfortable.

Days 1–2 — Tehran. National Museum. Golestan Palace. The Niavaran Palace (north of the city, in the foothills).

Day 3 — Qom. Half-day at the shrine of Fatima Masumeh. Drive on to Kashan in the afternoon.

Day 4 — Kashan. The Qajar merchant houses. The Fin Garden. The bazaar.

Days 5–7 — Isfahan. Three full days. Naqsh-e Jahan Square; Friday Mosque; Vank Cathedral; the bridges.

Days 8–9 — Yazd. See above.

Days 10–11 — Kerman. The Ganjali Khan complex; the Friday Mosque; the Shahzadeh Garden at Mahan. The Bam citadel (largely destroyed by the 2003 earthquake; reconstruction is partial but visitable) is two hours east.

Days 12–14 — Mashhad. The shrine of Imam Reza; Tus and the tomb of Ferdowsi; the Timurid Goharshad Mosque. Fly home from Mashhad.

The under-visited north-west of Iran: the Safavid family homeland at Ardabil, the great Sasanian fire-temple at Takht-e Soleyman, the Ilkhanid observatories at Maragheh, and the Caucasian frontier with Azerbaijan and Armenia. Tabriz and the surrounding region are the heartland of Iranian Azerbaijani culture; Azeri Turkish is the dominant spoken language. A useful complement to the southern Persian-language tour.

Days 1–3 — Tabriz. The historic bazaar; the Blue Mosque; the Constitution House (a 1909 building that played a role in the constitutional revolution); the Azerbaijan Museum.

Day 4 — Maragheh. Capital of the Ilkhans before they moved to Tabriz. The ruins of the Maragheh Observatory (Nasir al-Din Tusi, 1259) are on a hill west of the modern city.

Day 5 — Takht-e Soleyman. UNESCO World Heritage. The Sasanian state fire-temple, set inside a volcanic crater with a deep mineral lake at its centre. Spectacular and largely unvisited.

Days 6–7 — Ardabil. The Sheikh Safi al-Din shrine complex — the funerary mausoleum of the founder of the Safavid order, built between 1334 and 1349 and continuously enlarged through the Safavid period. UNESCO World Heritage.

Day 8 — The Aras valley. The Armenian monasteries of Saint Thaddeus (Qara Kelisa) and Saint Stepanos, at the Azerbaijan and Armenia borders, both UNESCO World Heritage. Saint Thaddeus has an annual Armenian pilgrimage in July.

Days 9–10 — Drive south to Tehran. Via Zanjan and Qazvin.