Abarkuh

Abarkuh sits on the desert road between Yazd and Shiraz and is worth the stop for three things. The cypress of Abarkuh is a very old tree, commonly given an age of four thousand years and treated as a national monument, standing in a walled enclosure in the town; the figure is traditional rather than dated by measurement, but it is unquestionably ancient and very large. The Aqa Zadeh mansion is a Qajar house with a tall badgir wind tower and painted rooms. And the yakhchals, conical mud-brick ice houses, stand at the edge of town: domes up to eighteen metres high over sunken pits, where winter ice was made in shallow channels and stored through the summer.

What you actually see

• The ancient cypress - a very old tree kept as a national monument.
• Conical yakhchal ice houses - mud domes over sunken ice pits.
• The Aqa Zadeh mansion - a Qajar house with a tall wind tower.
• Desert road setting - the town on the route between Yazd and Shiraz.

When to go

March to May and October to November. Two to three hours as a break on the drive. Mornings are cooler for walking to the ice houses, which are on the edge of the settlement.

Honest expectations

The cypress is fenced and viewed from a distance. The four-thousand-year age is a traditional claim rather than a measured one. Site opening hours are loose and buildings are sometimes locked. The town itself has little else.

Nearby

Yazd is north-east; Shiraz lies south-west on the same road.