Where the country turns green.

Terracotta houses stacked so tightly that each roof is the next neighbour's courtyard — a UNESCO-listed village hanging in the mist of the Talysh mountains.

Emerald tea plantations rolling down to the Caspian, quiet lanes through rice paddies, and the samovar culture of Rasht and the coastal villages.

Iran's only travertine terraces — mineral-rich springs that have built a natural staircase of orange and gold basins glowing at sunset.

A grassy ridge in the Alborz where a small village floats above a sea of clouds most mornings — one of the most photographed dawns in Iran.

The ancient Hyrcanian rainforest — a UNESCO relic of the last ice age — turning copper and gold across the hills of Naharkhoran and Jangal-e Abr.

The wide golden steppe east of Gorgan, home to the Turkmen horse festivals, felt yurts and the tomb tower of Gonbad-e Qabus rising from the plain.

Snow-capped Sabalan reflected in its summit crater lake, the mineral hot springs of Sarein, and Safavid-era Sheikh Safi shrine at the foot of the mountain.

A turquoise alpine lake ringed by rolling green meadows and shepherd camps — the cool, quiet roof of northwest Iran in summer.

One of the largest hypersaline lakes on earth, its water turning soft pink in late summer against a horizon of salt flats and distant mountains.

A UNESCO Sasanian sanctuary built around a bottomless volcanic crater lake — one of the most atmospheric ruins in the country.

Cone-shaped homes hand-carved into volcanic rock, still lived in today — Iran's answer to Cappadocia, tucked into the Sahand highlands south of Tabriz.

The turquoise Aras cutting a deep valley along the northern border, the Armenian monasteries of St. Stepanos and the wildflower slopes of Arasbaran.