Tourist Attractions
Shopping in Tehran Bazaar

Take a Hike

Tehran's Cemetery

Museums

Sunday Morning: Go to Church

 
bazar Shopping in Tehran Bazaar
Like everything in Tehran, and for that matter Iran, the Bazaar is a unique experience in a huge, buzzing, vibrant, fun complex and one that simply cannot be missed. 

Tehran Bazaar is the largest market in Iran and while there aren't many windows, the 10km of covered alleys are home to just about every consumer item you can imagine.  Bazaar deserves a half-day stroll.  The various commodities are grouped together, with alleys dedicated to spices, goldsmiths, cobblers, tailors, tobacconists and, of course, priceless silk hand woven Persian carpet merchants.  Forget about navigating, just walk through the main entrance at 15 Khordad Avenue and wander.

Your tour of the Tehran's 10-km long covered bazaar will begin at Sabzeh Maidan (Green Square).   Actually, entrance to bazaar is through several gates, closed and manned by security personnel at nights.  The first section, on the east, is devoted to luxury articles, especially watches and jewelry.   Beyond these are the carpet dealers.  Turn off at right angle to the main street from time to time to enjoy the relative peace of a timcheh or depot in the from of a rectangular courtyard open to the sky, where fountains or small pools alleviate the suffocating dry heat of a Tehrani summer afternoon.

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bazar Take a Hike
Begin at Tajrish Square and walk up to Darband or go to Darakeh, villages on the side of the mountain that is now part of Tehran because of the spread of the city in the recent years.  Tehranis love the teahouses and trails that spread out from Darband and Darakeh, and hiking for a couple of hours on a Friday morning or afternoon, before stopping for tea and qalyan (water pipe), is the typical Tehran experience.

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Tehran's Cemetery
Take the Tehran Metro to Behesht-e Zahra, the vast cemetery where tens of thousands of soldiers "martyred" in the Iran-Iraq War are buried.  Wandering through the graves, each topped with a glass box containing photos and mementoes, is quite sobering.  From here, walk over to the gargantuan Holy Shrine of Imam Khomeini.

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Museums
Start at the National Museum of Iran on Si Tir Street (00 98 21 6670 2061) where remarkable exhibits from the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis include a bull-headed stone capital, a cuneiform inscription immodestly describing Xerxes closeness to the gods, and a magnificent frieze of glazed tiles from the Apadana Palace. It's open 9am-4.45pm daily except Mondays, admission IR10,000.

From the museum, head south a couple of blocks to the Golestan Palace, just off Ark Square.  The numerous palaces were built by the Qajar shahs (1779-1926), who helped pay for these and other excesses by selling state assets.  The palace (00 98 21 3311 3335) opens 9am-3pm daily except Sundays and Thursdays, admission IR4,000 per building.

If you like the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, you're going to love the National Jewels Museum on Ferdosi Street (00 98 21 6446 3785). Here in an underground vault are displayed the pick of the diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls and gold amassed by various dynasties of Persian rulers.  Highlights include the 182-carat Sea of Light diamond; the 34kg Globe of Jewels, with its 51,366 precious stones; and the Peacock Throne.  The objects testify to the creativity of Iranian artisans in using precious stones, gold, pearls and ivory to beautify objects of everyday use: coffee cups, dish covers, water pipes, incense burners, a saddle horn, boxes, watches, quiver for arrows, candlesticks, quills, hunting rifles, swords, cloaks and a rosewater sprinkler.  The museum keeps short hours - 2-4.30pm Saturday to Tuesday, admission IR30,000.

With an area of more than 110 hectares, there lays Sa'ad Abad Palace Complex at the foot of the Alborz ranges, north of Tehran, situated to the west of Golab Dareh and east of Velenjak quarters.  It was first the summer residence of Qajar kings, and then turned into Reza Shah's summer residence following expansion and annexation of some other quarters.  On various occasions, villa-palaces and mansions were erected on the beautiful range among aged cypresses and aspens, in almost the vicinity of the remnants of aged and weather beaten Qajar mansions the facades of which were constructed in bricks.  In the course of time, they numbered 18, each in a different architectural style and technique. After the Islamic Revolution, palaces were changed into museums in a suitable way to represent the finest works of art from Iranian and non-Iranian artists to the large number of visitors.  Today, there are 10 museums open to the public as follow: 

  1. Green palace: The building is called green palace because of the color of its façade. The palace is a very nice museum of Persian art like mirror marquetry, carpets, and illumination and plaster work.
  2. Nation's palace: In two stories, different small and large rooms were served as residence and office of Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son.  Rooms were used as sitting room, waiting room, reception hall, dinning hall and bedroom.  There are some works of art like figurines and chinaware are kept in showcases.  There are four big mural painting the subjects of which are Iranian myths.
  3. Nations' museum: This collection consists of various works of art purchased from other countries and represents the civilizations of pre-Islam Iranian, African, Indian, far east, Eskimos, Mayas and contemporary arts of Iranian as well as non-Iranian artists.
  4. Fine arts museum: The major part of the paintings in this collection are the oil paintings of Safavid, Afshar, Zand and Qajar periods collected by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's last wife, Farah.
  5. Behzad museum: This museum is devoted to the miniatures painted by Hossein Behzad (1895-1968) who made a revolution in Iranian painting. Studying European art and being inspired by Kamal-ed-din Behzad and Reza Abbasy, he introduced a new style of miniature on paper, hard paper or fiberboard. This style is purely Iranian, but it has kept on with its contemporary paces and changes of art in universal art schools.
  6. Abkar museum: The miniatures in this museum are works of a 20th century artist called Klara Abkar who had her particular style in painting.  Her source of inspiration was the rich Iranian literature and mysticism.
  7. Mir Emad museum: The main subject of this museum is the most prominent post-Islam Iranian art namely calligraphy.  On paper and parchment, there are plenty of various calligraphic styles of writing belonging to 10th to 19th centuries. Mir Emad, himself, the most well known 18th century's calligrapher, has been introduced by his works.
  8. Museum of anthropology: The lifestyle and customs of Iranians through the history are displayed from cultural perspective.
  9. Water museum: This museum in an exhibition of ancient and traditional techniques and instruments for water supplement and distribution.
  10. Military museum: the objects of the museum are displayed on two floors.  The military uniforms of Achaemenians up to the present time are exhibited.

The Carpet Museum of Iran has been open to visitors since 1979.  It comprises of two floors to display different kinds of carpets, kilims and handmade rugs.  The first floor hall is devoted to permanent exhibition and the second one to temporary exhibitions of carpets or carpet-related subjects.   Some traditional and very rare designs and patterns are found among the carpets.  Portrait, multi-panel, botteh, triangular citron and animal design carpets are among various designs found in the collection.  Also, sometimes the so-called Polish carpets are on display.  They are the carpets made in Iran, but known as made in Poland.  The above mentioned and all other famous pieces have been made at the main centers of carpet making like Kashan, Kerman, Esfehan, Tabriz, Khorasan, Kurdistan and so forth.  There are some other facilities in the museum including a library with around 7000 books, which are available to researchers and enthusiast and a movie-house in which specialized films in the field of knotting carpet and designing kilim motifs can be watched.

The beautiful mansion housing glass wares and ceramics was first ordered to be built as the personal residence of a politician named Ahmad Qavam in early 1920s.  The building was occupied by him as residence and office up to 1953 when it was sold to the Egyptian embassy.  At last, in 1976, it was converted into Glassware and Ceramics Museum following some repairs and changes.  The objects exhibited in this museum, which is also called Abgineh Museum, belong to a span of time beginning from pre-Islam period up to the contemporary Iran.  The museum objects, in general, can be divided into five categories each in a different hall including Enamel gallery, Crystal gallery, Nacre gallery, Gold gallery, and Lapis-lazuli galleries 1&2.  There is also some crystal made vessels of the 18th and 19th centuries from Europe exhibited in a separate showcase. There is also a library in the north west of the gardens surrounding the museum having approximately 3000 volumes of books in Farsi and English on archaeology, history, arts, etc for students and researchers.

Devote a day to the grandeur of Islamic art and move forward in time to the Tehran Contemporary Arts Museum hosting modern masters and pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

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Sunday Morning: Go to Church
The Armenian Christian community attends mass at Sarkis Cathedral on Karim Khan-e Zand Street. The 1960s cathedral is no Notre Dame, but worshippers are welcome on Sundays.

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