Baku, Gobustan, Lankaran and Yanar Dagh: 4-day sightseeing tour

Four days in Azerbaijan are built as a conversation about how the country changed layer by layer: from the oil grandeur of the beginning of the last century to ancient fortresses and fiery hills. You live in Baku and travel out from it — to the south, to subtropics and forests, and to Absheron, to places where flame comes out from under the ground. The pace is uneven: the first day is a long walk around the city, the second is road and nature, the third is a packed ring around the capital, the fourth is a calm completion.

Baku in this trip is shown not as a postcard facade, but as a city where rich mansions neighbor fortress walls, and modern buildings neighbor water and carpets. You will walk along streets where oil barons once settled, look into a garden with a fountain and through a narrow alley get into another century. This is a day of unhurried examination of details: majolica, facades, arches, shops with souvenirs.

The second day leads to the south, toward Lankaran. First — Gobustan with its stones and traces of ancient life, then — a citrus farm, where you can try and buy local fruits in season, and, finally, a city with a fortress and a mosque, and after — a forest that is older than the Ice Age, with a lake in its depth. Here the rhythm slows down, because the road itself sets it.

The third day is about fire and oil. You will see an ancient settlement where you can bake bread and work with clay, a temple of fire worshippers and a burning mountain, as well as a settlement from which the oil history began. The day ends with modern architecture — a building that is worth seeing at least for its forms. This is the densest day in impressions, but also the most diverse in contrasts.

The trip will suit those who want to see Azerbaijan in a short time and are not afraid of journeys. It is not about the beach and not about gastronomic tourism, but about getting to know history and nature through places that change from day to day.