Concise but comprehensive, Essential Iran provides a good, unhurried look at Iran’s most galvanizing cities, from the capital to Yazd and on to Shiraz, Persepolis, and Esfahan. We honor these places in Treasures of Persia, but let’s make room for a couple of quotes about Esfahan that might well be said about any of Iran’s great monument-cities. H. M. Stanley (of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” fame) wrote in the late 1880s—and it’s still true today—that Esfahan’s “gorgeous temples of pleasure, lofty minars and egg-shaped domes ... fulfilled my dream of the Orient.” And the great traveler Freya Stark, entranced, saw that “the whole of Esfahan gives the feeling of a great deal of labour and loveliness and thought spent on the light, airy, evanescent side of things.”

Days 1: arrive in Tehran • Day 2: Tehran • Day 3: fly to Yazd • Day 4: Yazd • Day 5: drive to Shiraz • Day 6: Shiraz • Day 7: Shiraz, fly to Esfahan • Day 8: Esfahan • Days 9 & 10: Esfahan, fly to Tehran • Day 11: depart Tehran.

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