Western Iran's high plateau is a land of ancient roads, and the one that runs past Tāj Ābād is among the oldest. The village lies in Hamadan province, in the foothills below the Alvand massif, in a region the Medes once ruled from their capital Ecbatana, called Hegmataneh in Persian, now buried beneath the modern city of Hamadan, one of the oldest cities in Iran. Not far away, the cliff of Bisotun carries a huge inscription ordered by Darius I around 520 BC, telling in three languages how he took the throne, a text that helped scholars decode cuneiform in the nineteenth century. UNESCO listed it in 2006.
The landscape is high and dry, a plateau at around two thousand metres, with fields of wheat and barley, orchards of walnut and apple, and bare ridges rising to snow-covered peaks. Alvand, east of Hamadan, rises to over three and a half thousand metres. Roads here are generally well surfaced and wide, with long climbs and curving descents through mountain passes. Winters are severe, with snow and ice, and summer days are hot and clear, while spring and autumn are the best seasons, with cool air and sharp light. Truck traffic is heavy on the main highways, so look well ahead on blind curves.
Asadābād, about fourteen kilometres away, is a town of nearly sixty thousand people, with fuel, bakeries and shops, and Bahār, with nearly thirty thousand, lies farther off. Fuel stations are common on the main roads, though queues and rationing rules can apply, so check locally. Travel conditions and entry rules for foreign visitors change, so look up current advice before you plan a route.
Hamadan has an old tradition of hospitality, and if you stop in a village you may well be offered tea and sweets. Try the local bread, the walnut sweets and the strong, sweet tea served in small glasses. Further on, the Ganjnameh inscriptions, carved by Darius and his son Xerxes in the rock above Hamadan, are another reminder that this land was a crossroads of empires long before the age of the motorcycle.