Iran - Andrew Burke [155]
Tasviran Photo Shop ( 722 8560; Kashani St; 8am-9pm) Develops film and prints digital pictures. English spoken, no slides.
Sights
TAQ-E BOSTAN
At the city’s northern edge, Kermanshah’s star attraction is Taq-e Bostan (admission IR5000; 8am-9pm), a towering cliff inscribed with some extraordinary Sassanian bas-reliefs. They are set in and around a pair of carved alcoves. The biggest and newest alcove features elephant-backed hunting scenes on the side walls and highlights the coronation of Khosrow II (AD 590–628) beneath which the king rides off in full armour and chain mail looking like the Black Prince (albeit half a millennium before European knights had ‘invented’ such armour). The second niche shows kings Shapur II and Shapur III twiddling their sword handles and enjoying a relaxed chat apparently oblivious to the footballs that have landed on their heads. To the right of the niches is the finest and oldest tableau showing Shah Ardashir II (r AD 379–383) trampling on the defeated Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate (who he’d beaten in AD 363 when Shapur II’s commander). He receives a crown of blessing from Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda, or perhaps from Shapur II – experts disagree. Meanwhile Mithras sneaks up behind pretending to be Luke Skywalker with a light sabre.
Surrounding open-air restaurants remain popular late into the evening. Even after the reliefs-complex closes, sympathetic lighting means that a golden glow emanates warmly from the alcoves, making the reliefs attractively half-visible through trees across a boating pond.
HOSSEINIEHS
Distinctively Shiite, Hosseiniehs are shrines where plays are acted out during the Islamic month of Moharram, commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hossein at Karbala (AD 680). The finest in Kermanshah is the 1913 Takieh Mo’aven ol-Molk (Hadad Abil St; admission IR4000; 10am-noon & 4-7.30pm Sat-Thu). Enter down stairs, through a courtyard and domed central chamber decorated with grizzly scenes from the great Karbala battle. The shrine remains very much active, pilgrims kissing the doors and looking genuinely moved by the ‘footprint of Ali’ on the wall of the second courtyard. This is set amid tiles depicting a wacky gamut of images from Quranic scenes, to pre-Islamic gods including Shahnameh kings, European villages and local notables in 19th-century costumes. A lovely building to the right is now an ethnographic museum displaying regional costumes and tools.
The lesser known Takieh Biglar Begi ( 827 6597; admission free; 8am-7pm Sat-Thu) now houses a fairly cursory calligraphy museum, but is worth visiting for its dazzling mirror-tiled central dome-room. To find it take the lane opposite the fine Jameh Mosque (Modarres St), which has a beautiful Yazd-styled twin minaret. Then take the first alley left.
OTHER SIGHTS
The extensive, much restored covered bazaar slopes up from Modarres St. It’s well worth exploring with a couple of dilapidated old caravanserai courtyards at the western end. Within the bazaar, Ehmad Dohla Mosque (Jewellery Bazaar), entered through an attractive tiled portal, has a Qajar-era clock tower.
The once interesting area of older houses around the blue-domed, 20th-century Ashikhade Mosque (Jalil St) has now been largely bulldozed, but some curiosities remain if you poke about in the back alleys.
Sleeping
BUDGET
A gaggle of cheapies lie handily close to Azadi Sq, many marked only in Farsi and almost all above shop fronts via stairways that are sometimes hard to spot.
Mosaferkhaneh Nabovat ( 823 1018; Modarres St; s/tw/tr IR60,000/105,000/140,000, without shower IR50,000/80,000/140,000) The friendly Nabovat has sensibly priced, no-frills rooms whose sheets are clean if cigarette-burnt and whose showers are powerful and stay hot for a reasonable while.
Hotel Azadi ( 823 3076; Modarres St; s/tw with private bathroom IR174,000/200,000, with shared bathroom IR108,000/123,000) Somewhat worn furniture in newly painted rooms, some with a tap, others with