Khaju Bridge

Khaju Bridge is the most refined of the historic bridges of Isfahan, the Safavid city on the Zayanderud. It was built around 1650 under Shah Abbas II, and it is at once a bridge and a weir: roughly 133 metres long and 12 metres wide, it rests on a low platform of stone with sluice gates between its piers, which could be closed to hold back the river and raise the water level upstream. On the downstream side the platform steps down in broad stone terraces, so when the river runs the water spills over them in a wide, shallow cascade.

The bridge has two storeys of arcades. The upper level carries the roadway between arched galleries; below it, a lower arcade opens onto the water, and steps lead down to shaded passages right beside the river. The vaults and spandrels are enriched with glazed tile decoration, and at the centre the bridge swells into a pavilion, the Shah-neshin, whose painted rooms served as a royal viewing place over the river — the shah is said to have watched boating and swimming here. Two stone lions guard the eastern ends; they were brought from other parts of the city in the twentieth century and set here for safekeeping.

It was never only a crossing. Shah Abbas II wanted to join the Khaju quarter with the Takht-e Foulad cemetery and the road to Shiraz across the river, but the bridge was also a place for public gatherings from the start, and it remains one. In the evenings local people sit in the arches and on the steps, talk, drink tea, and sometimes sing. The seventeenth-century French traveller Jean Chardin was among the visitors who recorded it. It is also known as Pol-e Shahi, the Royal Bridge, and together with Si-o-se-pol on the same river it is the best-loved of Isfahan's Safavid bridges.

Getting there

The bridge is in central Isfahan, about 2 km from the city centre, and Isfahan Shahid Beheshti International Airport (IFN) is about 23 km away. It is easily reached on foot or by taxi.