Iran

7 routes

GamesApproximate

Assassin's Creed Mirage: Basim's Baghdad, 861

Basim Ibn Ishaq begins as a street thief with big dreams and ends as a Hidden One in the middle of a hunt for the Order of the Ancients. Ubisoft sets his story in 9th-century Baghdad, in the turbulent years of the Anarchy at Samarra, when the Abbasid caliphs were losing control of their own court. The route follows him from the ruined town of Anbar to the mountain fortress of Alamut, through the districts of Baghdad and on to the oasis of al-Ula. Little of the Round City survives and the House of Wisdom is gone, so those pins are approximate; the Iraqi stops are for reading, not visiting.

5 locations2/5 visitable

BooksApproximate

The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia

In 1973 Paul Theroux set out from London Victoria on a four-month railway loop through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, then came back on the Trans-Siberian Railway. His travelogue, published in 1975, became a classic of the genre. This route follows episodes the book's reviewers single out, from the Direct-Orient Express to Istanbul, Calcutta, Burma, Vietnam and Tokyo. The book's own text could not be checked, so some pins mark a city's station rather than a scene, and some places are not safe to visit now.

9 locations6/9 visitable

Real JourneysSpeculative

Zheng He's Treasure Voyages: Nanjing to East Africa

Between 1405 and 1433 the Ming court sent a fleet from Nanjing across the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, seven times, under the admiral Zheng He. It came home with ambassadors and exotic animals. This route follows the sequence from the shipyard in Nanjing through Java, Malacca, Ceylon, Calicut and Hormuz to Malindi in East Africa, and ends at his empty tomb. Most ports are approximate pins, and later temple traditions are marked as such.

8 locations6/8 visitable

Real JourneysApproximate

Afanasy Nikitin: Journey Beyond Three Seas

In 1466 or 1468 a merchant from Tver set out down the Volga to trade around the Caspian Sea. He was robbed on the way, crossed Persia, sailed from Hormuz to India and wrote down what he saw in A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. This route follows him from Tver through Derbent, Hormuz and the coast of India to Bidar, and home to Caffa on the Black Sea. Dates are debated, and most stops are marked by area only because his notes name towns rather than buildings.

7 locations2/7 visitable

Real JourneysSpeculative

Marco Polo: From Venice to the Great Khan and Back

In 1271 a seventeen-year-old Venetian set out with his father and uncle for the court of Kublai Khan and did not come home for 24 years. Years later, in a Genoese prison, he dictated what he had seen to a fellow inmate, and The Travels of Marco Polo was the result. The route follows the book from Venice and Acre to the Persian Gulf, across the Pamir highlands and the desert to Kublai's summer and winter capitals, south to Hangzhou and the port of Zayton, and home again. Some of the roads are reconstructed by scholars, and Polo sometimes exaggerates, so each stop notes where the evidence is thin.

12 locations9/12 visitable

Real JourneysApproximate

Ida Pfeiffer's First Journey Around the World

In May 1846 Ida Pfeiffer, a 48-year-old Viennese widow with grown-up sons and very little money, set off to go round the world — mostly alone, on cargo ships, on horseback and with caravans. She came home two and a half years later, in the middle of a revolution, and turned her diaries into a bestseller translated into seven languages. The Royal Geographical Society in London would not admit her, because it did not accept women. The route follows her first world journey in order, from her own book, A Woman's Journey Round the World: Hamburg, the Brazilian forest, Cape Horn and Valparaíso, Tahiti, Canton, Baghdad, Persia and home. There are no visitor tips for Iraq or Iran.

9 locations7/9 visitable

HistorySpeculative

Alexander the Great: Across the Known World

In the spring of 334 BC Alexander, the 22-year-old king of Macedon, crossed into Asia with an army of Macedonians and Greeks to make war on the Persian Empire. Eleven years later he had defeated the Persian king Darius III three times, taken Egypt, burned Persepolis and led his men to the rivers of the Punjab — and then died in Babylon at the age of 32, his empire stretching from Greece to India. The route follows the campaign through its turning points, with Arrian's Anabasis, written four centuries later from earlier accounts, as the main guide. Several battlefields can only be placed approximately; their pins are marked as such.

9 locations4/9 visitable