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BAZAAR & CRAFT WORKSHOPS

The fascinating covered bazaar amply repays idle wandering. At the east end of the fine Bazaar-e Vazim, Saroye Vazir is stacked high with bundled old carpets. It’s one of several wonderfully down-at-heel caravanserais between which you’ll still find the odd door-maker and metal workshop. A cushion maker reveals his craft in an alley off Molavi St and there’s a traditional shoemaker near Shohada Sq.

CISTERNS

Qazvin has some of Iran’s best-preserved domed cisterns where water was stored underground and cooled by wind towers. Sadly getting in is rarely possible so don’t make a special trip, but if you’re passing the most impressive from outside are the Sardar cisterns and the Haji Kazem Cistern with its well-preserved wind tower.

GATES

Tehran Gate (Darvazeh-e-Qadim-e-Tehran) and Rah Kushk Gate (Darbe Kousht; Naderi St) are two dinky little Qajar decorative remnants of Qazvin’s once-vast city walls. The much more massive Ali Qapu (Helel-e-Ahmar St) was originally a 16th-century gateway to the royal precinct, a kind of forbidden inner city. Today it’s a police post so don’t take photographs.

OTHER SIGHTS

Tourist maps mark dozens of other historic buildings, but few are at all visually exciting. Even the colourfully domed 14th-century Amineh Khatun shrine with fine blue conical spire and Kufic script seems forlornly lost in the warren of banal modern backstreets.

The cute, 20th-century Kantur Church (Borj-e-Naghus) has a blue-brick belfry dome and sits in a tiny Russian graveyard.

Safa Hammam (Molavi St at Taqavi Alley; bath IR5000; 7am-7pm Sat-Thu, 7am-2pm Fri) is the best known of Qazvin’s traditional subterranean bathhouses to remain active. The domed central rest area is attractive. Men only.

Activities

Qazvin is a good place to prepare for Alamut-area hikes. Nakhajir Camping Shop ( 222 4551; Ferdosi St; 8am-1pm & 4-9pm Sat-Thu) sells great-value camping gear including head torches (IR30,000 to IR50,000), sprung hiking sticks (IR70,000) and 1:300,000 Farsi maps of the Alborz (IR15,000).

Mehdi Babayi ( 0912-682 3228) is an experienced trekking and climbing guide who pays attention to key safety details, even though his organisation can seem somewhat haphazard. He’s a surreal Iranian Shane Warne lookalike with a comically dextrous 200-word English vocabulary; a character you’ll remember long after any trek.

Sleeping

Mehmanpazir Buali ( 222 3329; Buali St; s/d/tr IR80,000/90,000/120,000) Repapered rooms (some windowless) have TVs and top-sheets and share faultlessly clean bathrooms, though the whole place has a slightly musty smell.

Khaksar Hotel ( 222 4239; Khaleqi Alley; s/d/tr IR80,000/100,000/120,000) Neat, spacious recently redecorated rooms with shared bathrooms. Better than most other Qazvin mosaferkhanehs.

Mehmanpazir Merkezi ( 222 6279; Imam Khomeini St; d/tr IR100,000/150,000) Fairly sweet little rooms with top-sheets, rug, fan and central air-conditioning share very clean showers and squat toilets. Road noise can be disturbing.

Hotel Iran ( 222 8877; Peyghambarieh St; s/tw IR120,000/160,000) This popular traveller favourite manages to be simultaneously quiet yet eminently central. The pleasant, decently furnished rooms are great value with good bathrooms and central air-conditioning – if they turn it on! Owner Karim Noruzi speaks good English, but compare options before signing up to his Alamut trips.

Alborz Hotel ( /fax 222 6631; hotel_alborz_q@yahoo.com; Taleqani Blvd; s/tw US$25/40; ) This appealing midrange option has small but fully equipped modern rooms with golden bedcovers, towels and BBC World TV. Staff are very helpful and the lobby coffee shop makes a pleasantly low-key meeting point.

Marmar Hotel ( 255 5771; www.marmarhotel.com, in Farsi; Ayatollah Khamenei Blvd; s/d IR400,000/540,000) The Marmar is a festival of nouveau-riche kitsch, overloaded with mouldings and chandeliers. Little armour-clad knights guard the soapstone marble stairs. Comfortable rooms are graciously