Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Aminiha Hosseiniyeh
(Molavi St at Amin Deadend; admission US$1; 9am-1pm & 5-8pm)
. Tucked away in a
walled rose garden is the well-preserved 1773 Aminiha Hosseiniyeh. It's a private man-
sion that doesn't look much from the outside, but has a splendidly gaudy wood, glass and
mirror interior and a refreshingly cool, brick vaulted basement. A great place to unwind
and write up your diary in peace.
TRADITIONAL HOUSE
Imamzadeh-ye Hossein
This large, well-proportioned
shrine
has a Qajar facade, a 16th-century blue dome and
plenty of new mirror tiling. It commemorates a son of Imam Reza and is convivially set in
a big fountain courtyard surrounded by coloured-brick alcoves. Behind is a martyrs'
graveyard and an aged fighter plane on a pole.
IMAMZADEH
Cisterns
Qazvin has some of Iran's best-preserved domed cisterns where water was stored under-
ground and cooled by wind towers. Sadly getting in is rarely possible so don't make a spe-
cial 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.
ARCHITECTURE
Gates
Tehran Gate
(Darvazeh-e-Qadim-e-Tehran)
and
Rah Kushk Gate
(Darbe Kousht; Na-
deri 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 gate-
way to the royal precinct, a kind of forbidden inner city. Today it's a police post so don't
take photographs.
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 its fine blue con-
ical spire and Kufic script, seems forlornly lost in the warren of banal modern backstreets.
The
Safa Hammam
(Molavi St at Taqavi Alley; bath US$1; 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.
ARCHITECTURE
