8-Day Private Iran Heritage Tour with Persepolis and Isfahan

Your guide meets you inside the terminal at Imam Khomeini International, and the country starts immediately. First is Golestan Palace, the Qajar dynasty's mirrored, tiled, gloriously excessive seat of power and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where the Peacock Throne once sat and Iran's first photographs were developed.

Then continue to the National Museum of Iran, the oldest and richest in the country, for a through-line from Elam and Persepolis to the Islamic centuries. If the light holds, you will also see the Gate of the National Garden and the Foreign Ministry palaces before finishing in the Grand Bazaar, ten kilometres of covered lane where Tehran actually happens. Overnight in Tehran.

A day around Tehran to Isfahan - Jolfa and the Armenian quarter.

Everything today happens around Naqsh-e Jahan, one of the great public squares of the Islamic world. Naqsh-e Jahan, the Image of the World, is UNESCO-listed, second-largest on the planet, and holds three masterpieces on three of its sides.

Visit the Ali Qapu palace and its music room upstairs, carved into acoustic honeycomb. See Sheikh Lotfollah, built as a private mosque for the royal women, with a dome that turns from cream to deep rose as the sun crosses it. Then continue to the Shah Mosque and its seven-colour tile. The arcades between them are still working craft workshops.

In the evening, visit the Isfahan Music Museum, home to three hundred instruments from across Iran, and enjoy a small live performance to close the day.

A day around Isfahan to Yazd - Meybod's pigeon tower and Narin Castle.

A full day in the only historic urban fabric in Iran that UNESCO inscribed whole. Visit the Jameh Mosque and its portal, with the tallest tiled minarets in the country, then continue to Amir Chakhmaq Square, whose tiered alcoves are the image everyone brings home from Yazd.

Next is Dowlat Abad Garden, another of the nine UNESCO Persian gardens, beneath the tallest badgir wind tower in the world. Then head up to the Towers of Silence at the city's edge, where Zoroastrians laid out their dead so as not to defile earth or fire.

In the afternoon, take in a zurkhaneh, with the drums and ritual gymnastics of the House of Strength, and visit the Atash Behram, where a flame has burned continuously for more than fifteen centuries.

A day around Pasargadae, Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam to Shiraz.

Up early: this one is timed, not scheduled. Nasir al-Mulk opens at dawn, and for roughly an hour the low sun comes through its east-facing stained glass and lays the entire carpet in shifting colour.

Then continue to Qavam's orangery at Narenjestan, followed by the Zandiyeh complex: Karim Khan's citadel with its famously leaning tower, the Vakil Mosque, the Vakil bathhouse, and the Vakil Bazaar, where the carpet dealers are worth an hour whether or not you buy.

Visit the shrine of Ali Ibn Hamzeh for its mirrorwork, and then Hafez, whose tomb is not a monument but a working garden where Iranians come at dusk to read poetry aloud to each other. Farewell dinner in Shiraz.

A transfer to Shiraz International timed to your flight, with the morning free if you have one that allows it. Eram Garden and Saadi's tomb are both close by and both worth it.

Your guide stays with you to the terminal, which in Iran is useful. We are glad to extend the trip at either end: the Persian Gulf islands of Qeshm and Hormuz, Tabriz and the northwest, or the cave village of Kandovan can all be built onto this route.