Yazd is one of the oldest cities in the world and the centre of the Zoroastrian religion. It is a city of wind towers, high turrets with openings to catch the winds providing natural air-conditioning during the hot summer months and qanats – underground canals used for irrigation. A dry, desert city, Yazd until recently used to draw its water supply from the Shir Kuh mountains by means of an elaborate system of qanats, some as much as 45km long.

Zoroastrianism was the main religion across the Iranian plateau until the Arabs brought Islam to the people in the 7th century AD. Places to see include a Zoroastrian fire temple or Ateshkadeh, where a sacred flame has burned non stop since around 470 AD; The Towers of Silence where the dead were left to be picked off by vultures and the old city made of sun-dried bricks with labyrinthine alleyways.