Shopping in Baku is a study in contrasts, and that is exactly what makes it so enjoyable. Within a single afternoon you can haggle over a kilo of sun-dried apricots…
View PostAn hour or two west of Baku, the flat Absheron landscape gives way to rolling hills, walnut orchards and mountain rivers, and the pace of Azerbaijan slows down considerably. This…
View PostBaku is a different city after the sun goes down. The Caspian breeze cools the boulevard, the Old City walls glow amber under floodlights, and three glass skyscrapers on the…
View PostAzerbaijan's food culture sits at a crossroads where Persian saffron, Turkish grills, and Caucasian mountain herbs all meet at the same table, and nowhere is that more delicious than in…
View PostStep through one of the stone gates off Nizami Street and the twenty-first century quietly falls away. Icherisheher — Baku's walled Old City — is a living UNESCO World Heritage…
View PostMost travelers picture Azerbaijan as Caspian coastline and Old City alleyways, so the sight of a full-scale alpine resort just a few hours north of Baku tends to catch people…
View PostTwo of Azerbaijan's most rewarding regions sit side by side in the country's mountainous northwest: Sheki, a UNESCO-listed Silk Road town famous for its painted Khan's Palace, and Gabala, a…
View PostLong before oil turned Baku into a boomtown, Azerbaijan earned its nickname the "Land of Fire" from something stranger and older: hillsides and altars that burn on their own, fed…
View PostLess than an hour outside Baku, a rocky limestone plateau hides two of Azerbaijan's strangest and most memorable sights: thousands of prehistoric carvings etched into stone up to 40,000 years…
View PostBaku has a way of surprising first-time visitors. It is a city where a 12th-century stone tower sits a short walk from mirrored glass skyscrapers, where a Caspian Sea boulevard…
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