Holiday in the Caucasus (5): more out of and in Baku, Azerbaijan
Our fourth day in Azerbaijan was a mixture of out of Baku locations and a couple of Baku museums. Again the temperature was not excessive (28C) with a cooling wind.
First, we drove due south to Gobustan. This is the site of a wonderful collection of petroglyphs which has received UNESCO World Heritage status. Before viewing the petroglyphs, though, we visited an excellent museum which provides a good deal of useful content. Walking round the petroglyphs themselves was much aided by having our guide with us because he knew exactly what each scene represented and could point out the figures and animals with his laser.
I have seen petroglyphs before on a recent visit to Namibia, but these were better presented.
A short drive away was Dasgil Hill where we were treated to the sight of so-called mud volcanoes. This is not quite as dramatic as it sounds: there are around ten hillocks with tops about the size of a bicycle wheel that gurgle gas through cold, thick mud. Since there has been no rain for months, activity was undramatic, but the whole setting has a weird, other-planet type feeling.
It reminded me a little of the geysers that I saw in New Zealand and Iceland.
We returned to Baku to see the site of the world’s first industrially drilled oil well (1846) and to have a quick lunch at a place called “”Turco Burrito”.
Then we went to see the Historical Museum that we had been unable to visit on Sunday morning. This is located in the former home of a man unknown to most foreigners but revered by Azerbaijanis as ‘the Father of the Nation’: Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. He was an incredibly rich oil baron and philanthropist who lived from 1838-1924 and lived in this building from 1895-1920.
In fact, the only part of this building currently open to the public is the section where Taghiyev himself lived which is splendidly ornate.
The tour for the day was now over, but the three of us decided that we would like to see the Carpet Museum which, since 2014, has been housed in a striking building shaped like a rolled up carpet. We walked back to the hotel, a half-hour stroll past an area known as Little Venice and along the pleasant promenade.
So far on this holiday, only breakfasts have been included in the package but, for our final evening in Baku, we were taken to a huge establishment called “Sirvansah Muzey-Restoran” which was once a 19th century bathhouse and is now almost as much an ethnographic museum as a restaurant serving classic Azerbaijani food and offering traditional Azerbaijani music and dancing.