Heading northwest from Kerman into central Iran, we arrive at the desert city of Yadz. On one of the ancient silk routes from China to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, Yadz was visited in the 13th century by Marco Polo who described the city as “very fine and splendid…and a centre of commerce”. 

Today, Yadz is a large, thriving city famous for its silk, textiles and carpets. There’s not much left of the old city, just a small area of picturesque narrow alleyways lined with adobe houses, now mostly empty, just begging to become boutique hotels and tourist shops! We do see quite a lot of restoration going on and its apparent that eventually, Yadz will become a major tourist destination. Already a “must visit” city for tourists coming to Iran, this is the first stop at which we actually do encounter quite a few foreign tour groups - mostly French and German.

In appearance and feel, modern Yadz could quite easily be mistaken for a city in Mediterranean Europe, were it not for the Farsi script - oh and the clean, litter-less streets, orderly traffic, beautifully tended parks and verges and the absence of graffiti! As much as anywhere as we’ve so far, Yadz reminds visitors that Iran, other than obviously Israel, is the most developed and sophisticated country in the Middle East!

Yadz has another unusual claim to fame. It is home to a small number of people who follow the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism - no more than 10% of the population, perhaps 100,000 people or fewer; most followers of this religion, said to be the oldest of the world’s monotheistic religions live in Delhi and Mumbai  

Take a look at the depiction of the religion's prophet, Zoroastra and it's easy to spot common roots of the world's monotheistic religions. Later in the journey, we visit a 17th century Armenian church in Esfahan in which one of the paintings depicts the three wise men as Zoroastrians....