Iran Hotels

Cartwheels at the Caravan in Yazd

Advantages: Plenty of space and surprisingly quiet setting
Disadvantages: Outside the town so you'll need transport to get around

...desert city of Yazd. The Caravan is close to a large but surprisingly quiet road and takes the form of lots of small white single-storey apartment-style chalets set back from the road and surrounded by gardens. Ciao have done a great job of finding a good photo that shows what these look like. There was nothing else anywhere near the hotel so be aware that once you are there, unless you have transport, there's nothing to see or do nearby. Pulling ...
...and so we found the Caravan very different. Each couple were allocated a really large chalet. These were gathered in rows of 4 or 5, each with its own front and rear terrace with small flower beds. Opening the door to ours we found a really large room with high sloping ceilings and plain tiled floors. The décor was very basic but the room was clean and bright. The room was so large that our tour leader had told us that he considered the Caravan chalets ...

koshkha 17.05.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Caravan Hotel, Yazd, Iran

Four star luxury in the Axis of Evil

Advantages: Good central location, quality furnishings
Disadvantages: Nothing significant - overheated rooms perhaps

...of our tour - the Ali Qapu. Iranian Hotels I hope they'll forgive me for saying it, but the Iranian hotel industry is a bit weird. Up until the overthrow of the Shah, Persia was a pretty great place to visit - lots of fun to be had, some of the best winemaking areas of the Middle East (sadly these days Shiraz is known for grapes rather than wine) and some of the friendliest and most hospitable, party-loving people you could ever hope to meet. ...
...decidedly second rate hotels, the Ali Qapu was a rare treat - a hotel that you might actually choose to spend your money even if it weren't part of a pre-organised trip. Of course the great thing about the city of Esfahan is that even if you were staying in a spectacularly awful hotel, with cockroaches and smelly toilets, if you got sun-stroke and the raving ab-dabs, even with all those things you still couldn't fail to fall in love with the place ...

koshkha 03.04.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Ali Qapu Hotel, Esfahan

My experience of Iranian Captivity (in a lift!)

Advantages: Nice enough hotel but looking very dated
Disadvantages: Needs a darned good refurb

...2006, we stayed at the Kowsar Hotel in Tehran at both the beginning and end of our two week tour of Iran. The hotel is classified as a 4-star and must once have been worthy of that accolade but today it's looking tired and shabby and desperately in need of a bit of love and attention. However, I rather doubt it'll get it in the short term - it's not in the area of town that attracts the high-spending business travellers and there's no great need ...
...Room The rooms at the Kowsar are large and quite nicely laid out. You enter into a small lounge area with a couple of arm chairs, a cupboard and a fridge. Then you pass along a corridor with the bathroom to one side and come into the main bedroom. This was quite a common room layout during our tour and my guess - it's not more than a guess so take it with a pinch of salt - is that people like to gather in their rooms to socialise rather than ...

koshkha 10.04.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Kowsar Hotel, Tehran