Isfahan's layers run deeper than the Safavid square. This route traces the 841 AD Jameh Mosque, Seljuk domes, a Sassanid fire temple, Shah Abbas's palaces and the New Julfa quarter he populated with deported Armenians in 1604.
Twelve centuries in one courtyard: an 841 AD Abbasid hypostyle hall, the Seljuk brick domes of Nizam al-Mulk (1086) and Taj al-Mulk (1088), and Oljaytu's carved stucco mihrab of 1310. UNESCO-listed, open 09:00–17:30.
A 1512 Safavid shrine whose tilework predates Naqsh-e Jahan by a century, standing beside the 48m Seljuk minaret of Masjed-e Ali (1522 mosque, 12th-century tower) in the old Ahmadabad quarter.
A mudbrick citadel on a lone hill west of the city, with Sassanid-era and possibly Achaemenid foundations. The circular chahar-taq at the summit held a fire altar; the 20-minute climb rewards you with the whole Zayandeh plain.
The 1316 Ilkhanid tomb of Sufi dervish Amu Abdollah Soqla, topped by twin 17th-century minarets that sway in sympathy when one is pushed. Custodians demonstrate hourly; the tomb chamber below is the older, quieter half.
Shah Abbas II's 1647 reception pavilion, its twenty wooden columns doubled to forty in the reflecting pool. Six huge murals record the Battle of Chaldiran (1514), Nader Shah at Karnal and the reception of Humayun of India.
Thirty-three arches, 297m of 1602 Safavid engineering, built by Shah Abbas I's Georgian commander to carry the Chahar Bagh avenue over the Zayandeh. Doubled as a dam and as the stage for the Armenian water festival.
Built 1606–1664 by Armenians deported from Julfa on the Aras by Shah Abbas I. Frescoed hell scenes meet Islamic tilework; the museum holds the 1512 first Armenian printed book and an 1894 firman on the deportation.
Shah Abbas II's 1650 bridge-dam, 133m of two-tier arcades with sluice gates that once ponded the river into a lake for royal parties. The central octagonal pavilion was the shah's private viewing box.
The last great Safavid building, raised 1704–1714 by Shah Sultan Husayn and funded by his mother. Its silver-plated doors, plane-tree courtyard and turquoise dome were finished barely a decade before the Afghans took the city.
A 1713 bathhouse in the Bidabad quarter, in use until the 1960s and now an ethnographic museum. Wax figures fill the octagonal sarbineh and the hot garmkhaneh; the underground furnace and qanat channels are open to walk through.
Wander the lanes Shah Abbas granted his Armenian silk merchants in 1605. Bethlehem Church (1628), built by trader Khajeh Petros Velijanian, hides 72 gilded fresco panels behind a plain brick façade on Jolfa Square.
An eight-century burial ground of scholars, calligraphers and Safavid mystics, with domed takyehs over graves from the Timurid era onward. Baba Rokneddin's 1367 tomb and the Takyeh Mir Fendereski anchor the site.