Tabriz keeps its culture in Qajar courtyard houses, brick-vaulted museum halls and workshops where knots are still tied by hand. Three days here move from Ilkhanid ruins and municipal art collections to Azerbaijani ashik music, poets' tombs and living craft quarters.
Iran's second-largest archaeology museum, opened 1958 beside the Blue Mosque. Three floors run from Bronze Age Hasanlu pottery and Achaemenid seals to Ahad Hosseini's basement sculpture hall of anti-war bronzes. Open 09:00–19:00, closed Mondays.
Hilltop ruins of the 14th-century Ilkhanid academic city founded by vizier Rashid al-Din — once a scriptorium of 60 copyists producing illuminated manuscripts. Surviving walls, towers and excavated foundations sit on a ridge northeast of the centre.
A late-Zand, Qajar-refurbished mansion now the architecture faculty's studio building. The summer residence keeps original ceiling paintings and stained-glass orosi windows; students' models and drawings fill the rooms around the central pool courtyard.
The city's modern-art venue on the edge of Golestan Garden, showing rotating exhibitions by East Azerbaijani painters, photographers and graphic designers. Shows change roughly monthly and openings draw the local art-school crowd.
The 1880s residence of Amir Nezam Garrousi in the Sheshgelan quarter, restored as a Qajar-era house museum. Two storeys of mirrored halls, orosi glass and period rooms show costume, weaponry, calligraphy and household objects around a sunken courtyard.
The municipal stage behind the clock-tower town hall, running Azerbaijani-language plays, student productions and occasional ta'zieh passion drama. Box office posts the week's programme on paper sheets by the entrance.
The 1934 German-designed town hall with its four-faced clock tower houses the city museum: photographs of Tabriz under Russian and Ottoman occupation, Constitutional-era printing presses and the mechanism room of the chiming clock itself.
The Poets' Mausoleum's concrete arch-vault covers the graves of some 400 poets including Khaqani and the Azerbaijani-language poet Shahriyar. The adjoining museum keeps his manuscripts, tar and daily objects; evening recitals happen in the plaza.
Purpose-built galleries near El-Goli holding Safavid to Qajar Tabriz rugs, including pictorial and medallion pieces with knot counts above 700,000 per square metre. Wall panels explain the vertical loom, madder dyeing and the Tabriz hook-knife technique.
The old brick lanes northeast of the bazaar where silversmiths, khatam inlayers and carpet-repair workshops still trade from ground-floor rooms. Restored Qajar facades along Maqsoodieh Street mark the pre-1900 merchant district.
Working looms in the lanes off Sahib-ol-Amr Square where weavers tie Tabriz knots on cotton warps, often to designs drawn on graph paper by a naqqash. Small family workshops accept visitors; UNESCO listed Tabriz as a Carpet Weaving City of Crafts in 2015.
The restored Qajar bridge over the Mehranrud and the vaulted traditional teahouses nearby, where Azerbaijani is the working language and players set out backgammon boards. Live tar-and-kamancheh sessions occur on weekend evenings.