Tabriz: the world's oldest covered bazaar

A crucial stop on the Silk Road for centuries, Tabriz guards one of the oldest and largest covered bazaars still active in the world.

The center, around the oldest covered bazaar in the world, is comfortably explored on foot.

The Grand Bazaar of Tabriz, a UNESCO heritage site extending over kilometers of brick-covered corridors, remains one of the oldest and largest covered markets still active in the world.

A few steps away, the Blue Mosque from the fifteenth century, preserves turquoise tiles that survived a devastating nineteenth-century earthquake that destroyed much of the original structure.

Continuing, one visits Arg-e Tabriz, the remains of a fourteenth-century fortress that once dominated the entire city from atop its brick walls.

Toward evening, hand-woven Persian carpets in the bazaar, among the most prized in all of Iran, are still sold according to commercial traditions passed down by generations of merchants.

The Grand Bazaar of Tabriz, with its network of covered corridors dating in part to the pre-Mongol period, is considered one of the oldest covered commercial complexes still functioning in the world.

The 1780 earthquake destroyed much of the Blue Mosque, leaving only the main entrance with its original turquoise tiles intact until twentieth-century restorations.