Azerbaijan – Land of Fire

Arrive in Baku and transfer to your hotel. The rest of the day is free to relax or explore. OvernightSapphire Hotel or similar. Baku Baku is a city with a decidedly split personality. While uber-modern buildings continually spring up and there is talk of turning the city into ‘another Dubai’, much of Baku is still made up of Soviet style apartment blocks. Oil wealth at the turn of the 20th century led to a profusion of rather elegant European style architecture, giving it yet another façade. But without a doubt Baku’s most enigmatic part is the historic centre, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Icheri Sheher with its ancient collection of mosques, palaces and caravanserais, some of which date back to the 11th century. Located on the Absheron Peninsula, Baku can be rather windy – one theory of the origin of its name states that it means ‘wind-pounded place’, and it has numerous parks and squares like many of the old Soviet cities. Its first heyday came at the beginning of the 20th century, when the city produced more than half of the world’s petroleum – after falling into decline during Soviet times, Baku is once again on the up.

Explore Azerbaijan’s capital, including the medieval fortress of Icheri Sheher, the Shirvanshahs’ Palace and the 15th century caravanserai among other sites. From Baku we head to the Absheron Peninsula to visit the ‘flaming mountain’ of Yanardag, continuously alight with burning underground gases that seep through holes in the earth’s surface. We then visit the Gala Museum, the ‘fire-worshippers’ temple of Ateshgah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and continue to the medieval fortress at Amirjan before returning to Baku for the night. Overnight Sapphire Hotel or similar. (BLD) Yanardag The burning hillside of Yanardag is one of Azerbaijan’s most bizarre sites. From beneath the earth flammable gases seep through the porous sandstone, erupting into flames that can reach 10 metres in height, although this is rare these days as extraction has considerably reduced the amount of gas. The flames are never extinguished having been lit accidentally in 1958. Most of the world’s ‘flaming mountains’ are situated in Azerbaijan and Marco Polo recorded similar sights nearby as he passed through the region.

Today we will travel west to Gabala city. En route we visit the Diri Baba Mausoleum in Maraza and the Yeddi Gumbaz Mausoleum at Shamakha. We continue across the Muganly Pass, with great views of the mountains along the way. We have a stop at Lahic village, a historical ethnographic reserve with local people producing handcrafts and carpets. There are also metal engravers, ancient mosques, baths and beautiful cobbled streets with original apartment houses in this ancient mountain settlement. From here continue to Gabala city. Overnight Qafqaz Caravanserai (BLD)

This morning we set off from Gabala to Sheki. The delightful town of Sheki is one of Azerbaijan’s highlights. An important centre on the Trans-Caucasian trade routes, it was an independent khanate up until the 1820s and evidence of its former grandeur is not hard to spot. The splendid Khan’s Palace was built in 1762 without the use of any nails and is elaborately decorated with ornate patterns on its exterior. There are also a number of old caravanserais and mosques to explore. Sheki is a delight to wander around, with winding streets and traditional houses giving the feeling of yesteryear. From Sheki we take a trip to the nearby village of Kish with its interesting Albanian church. Overnight Sheki Saray Hotel or similar (BLD)

We head to Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second city. Upon arrival visit the local bazaar, the 17th century mosque of Shah Abbas and the unique ‘bottle house’ a local building decorated with nearly 50,000 bottles. Our final destination for the evening is Naftalan. Overnight Chinar Hotel or similar. (BLD)

This morning we discover more about Naftalan and the oil for which it is famous. There is the option to have a 15 minute oil bath before we then depart for Gobustan. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, Gobustan is rich in archaeological monuments with over 6000 rock engravings dating back as far as 40,000 years. The petroglyphs depict ceremonial dances, battles, warriors, boats and many other scenes, as well as more recent Roman ‘graffiti’ from the 1st century. But Gobustan is equally well known for its natural phenomena – mud volcanoes that simmer and belch muddy bubbles from their cones, an incredibly atmospheric place and probably unlike anything you will have seen before. Azerbaijan is home to more than half of the mud volcanoes in the world with nearly 400 of them within its borders. Roughly every twenty years one of them explodes with great gusto, showering tons of mud over the surrounding area. Overnight Sapphire Hotel or similar. (BLD) Naftalan Naftalan is a rare type of oil from Azerbaijan that is used for medicinal purposes. Azerbaijani doctors have prescribed it for years to treat various skin, joint and bone diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and rheumatism. It is extracted from only one place in Azerbaijan not far from Ganja. The town in question takes its name from the oil, "Naftalan", which comes from the Azeri for "neft alan" (oil buyer). It differs from other types of oil in that its purified form has a high concentration of naphthene hydrocarbons, about 55 percent. Other kinds of oil have a much lower concentration, about three to five percent.

Our last day in Azerbaijan. We visit the History Museum for an insight into the various cultures and civilisations that have held sway here. We also visit the Heydar Aliyev Center, designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid and noted for its distinctive architecture and flowing, curved style that eschews sharp angles The rest of the day is free for you to explore. Overnight Sapphire City Hotel or similar (BLD) The Caspian Sea Larger by far than any of the world’s lakes, the Caspian Sea became landlocked around 5 million years ago but still retains a certain level of salinity, hence its classification as a sea. Bordering Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, it measures an astonishing 143,000 square miles in surface area, and some of Eurasia’s greatest rivers including the Volga and the Ural flow into it. The Caspian is home to a broad diversity of wildlife – perhaps the best known being the sturgeon, and has its own species of seal.

Transfer to the airport for departure. (B)