Luxury hotels in Baku

Baku guide

Baku: the Old City and the Flame Towers

The Maiden Tower, a Shirvanshah palace, Zaha Hadid's cultural centre and the fire mountain.

Baku's walled Old City, Icherisheher, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the Maiden Tower and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, is the city's most cited sight. Above it, the three Flame Towers glow with moving lights at night, best seen from the seafront Boulevard on the Caspian.

Zaha Hadid's flowing Heydar Aliyev Center is a modern landmark, and Yanar Dag, a hillside that has burned for centuries from natural gas, and the mud volcanoes and rock art of Gobustan are within reach. Spring and autumn are the most pleasant seasons.

Gobustan and the mud volcanoes

Gobustan, about an hour south of Baku, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 6,000 rock carvings dating back up to 40,000 years, showing hunters, boats and dancers, and it is the most cited excursion from the capital. A modern museum introduces the site.

Nearby, Azerbaijan has nearly half of the world's mud volcanoes, small cones that gurgle and spit cold grey mud, reached by four-wheel drive. The tour often continues to Yanar Dag, the burning hillside, for sunset.

The Heydar Aliyev Center and the Boulevard

The Heydar Aliyev Center, a white building of flowing curves designed by Zaha Hadid, is one of the most cited sights of modern Baku and one of the architect's most celebrated works; its exhibitions and the building itself are worth a visit.

The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, in a building shaped like a rolled carpet, tells the story of a craft recognised by UNESCO, and the Baku Boulevard, along the Caspian, is the city's evening promenade, with views of the illuminated Flame Towers.