Itinerary

1. Gobustan - Absheron

   • Start the tour with a visit to the mud volcanoes (if the weather is suitable for a road trip) at 09:00 am. Mud volcanoes form in places where underground gas pockets have found a weak spot in the earth from where they can force their way to the surface. Over a thousand mud volcanoes are known to exist in the world, and some 400 of those are in the coastal area of Azerbaijan.

   • Visit Gobustan open-air museum, littered with neolithic rock drawings where 6,000 inscriptions (petroglyphs) are kept. Museum of Petroglyphs is another name for Gobustan - a mountainous place in the southeast of the Major Caucasian ridge located 60 km from Baku. Ancient primitive dwellings - caves and sites - and more than 100 thousand material culture objects have been found in that place. Annually, this stone picture gallery is visited by thousands of people from all over the world.

   • Observe Roman inscription over the stone and location of the shooting of “Agent 007”.

   • Take a brief halt at Bibi Heybat Mosque, the tomb of Ukeyma Khanum (a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) and one of the major monuments of Islamic architecture in Azerbaijan.

   • At around 2:00 pm, stop for lunch at one of the best restaurants in Baku.

   • Head to Absheron at 3:00 pm and see the famous Atesgah (Fire Temple). It is the first main settlement of worshipers in Azerbaijan since the second century. Ateshgah, often called the "Fire Temple of Baku", is a castle-like religious temple in Surakhani town, a Baku, Azerbaijan suburb. Based on Persian and Indian inscriptions, the temple was used as a Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian worship place.

   • Arrive at the Yanar Dag (Azerbaijani: Yanar Dağ, meaning "burning mountain"), a natural gas fire that blazes continuously at a hillside on the Absheron peninsula. Flames jet 3 meters high up in the air from a thin, porous sandstone layer.  Yanar Dag flame has been burning continuously for 3,000-4,000 years.

   End of tour.