Here’s how NOT to visit a 7,000-year-old Iranian city: do your research beforehand, not after getting home. When I saw Meybod (MAY-boad) from the top of the 2,000-year-old Narin Castle, I was instantly sorry I hadn’t planned a longer stay. As far as the eye can see, there are old neighborhoods filled with narrow adobe walkways,..
A postal route operated here when North America wasn’t yet settled by Europeans. Travelers and businessmen slept here in style 200 years before there was even such a thing as the United States. But today the caravanserai of Zafaraniyeh sits empty and abandoned, like thousands of other ancient jewels all over Iran, victim of time, cultural amnesia and..
Near SABZEVAR, Iran – Iran is so old that sometimes even aimless tourists get to discover a village chock full of antiquities seemingly unnoticed by a government overwhelmed with the upkeep of thousands of similar jewels. It’s mid-August afternoon and wife Saeideh and I are speeding toward Sabzevar on the highway that used to be..