NW Iran and Along the Caspian Sea

After a couple of days in the Iranian capital of Tehran, we set out for the northwest part of the country, stopping in Hamadan and Kermanshah, both cities with important historical sites (which can be seen on the Ancient Persia page).

One of the main attractions in Hamadan is the Gonbad-e Alavián (Alavian Dome), a mausoleum and a fine example of the ornate brick and stucco work of the Seljuq period (12th century). As it happens, the tomb sits in a schoolyard and our guide's learned discourse about the building was soon upstaged when a couple of dozen schoolgirls in their early teens ran out to greet the tourists. They were excited to learn we were Americans and eager to practice their English. Several of the girls posed for photos while others offered food – in this case cheese doodles – to the visitors, a sign of Iranian friendliness and hospitality that would be repeated again and again throughout the country.

Northwestern Iran is home to one of the country's many distinctive ethnic groups: the Kurds.  We stopped along the side of the road at one point and were warmly greeted by a group of Kurdish women (who had just finished the laundry in a nearby stream) and children who had to ham it up for the camera. The children put on an impromptu show of sliding down an embankment and continued until they were all sure their photos had been taken. Unlike the women in Tehran who wore black chadors or long dark coats, the Kurdish women were very colorfully dressed (while still maintaining conservative Islamic propriety).

At one point we came upon a strange, cone-shaped hill known as Solomon's prison because the inside of the cone is a hollow shaft that descends hundreds of feet and would make escape very difficult – if it had ever been used as a prison, which it probably wasn't. This hill, like the nearby Takht-e-Soleyman (Solomon's Throne), was named after the Islamic (and Christian) prophet Solomon, who in reality had nothing to do with either namesake. Nevertheless, climbing the steep hill gave us a chance to stretch our legs and peer down into the vertigo-inducing core.

We continued our journey northwest, visiting Maragheh, the unique mountain village of Kandovan, where the homes are carved out of the rock, and eventually arriving in Tabriz, Iran's second largest city. Photos from this part of the trip can be seen in the pop-up slide show listed below.

After crossing the Alborz mountains, we descended toward the Caspian Sea. We then traveled east along the southern coast of the Caspian. Further information and photographs about this area are in a pop-up slide show below.

From the Caspian Sea, we continued traveling east toward Mashhad and Northeastern Iran.