Azerbaijan gets squeezed into three-day Caucasus itineraries, which is a shame, because the country rewards a slower loop: a futuristic oil capital, a Mars-like coast of bubbling mud, and Silk Road towns in the Caucasus foothills — all connected for pocket change, with one of the region's great night trains to bring you home.
Baku, city of wind and oil
Give Baku two or three nights. The walled Old City (Icherisheher) is a genuine medieval maze around the enigmatic Maiden Tower, while the Flame Towers loom above it, rippling with LED fire after dark. Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Center is worth the trip out just to walk around — the building has no straight lines and no bad angles. Evenings belong to the Caspian boulevard: tea with jam served in pear-shaped armudu glasses, backgammon boards clacking, the smell of oil money and sea wind. Dorms run USD 8–12; a filling lunch of qutab flatbreads is a dollar or two. Note that most nationalities need an e-visa (USD 26, issued in about three days).
Gobustan: art and mud
An hour south of Baku, the Gobustan reserve holds more than 6,000 petroglyphs — dancers, reed boats, long-horned aurochs — scratched into boulders over some 15,000 years. The modern museum is genuinely excellent. The stranger half of the day is nearby: a field of gryphon mud volcanoes, waist-high grey cones that gurgle and spit cold, sulphur-scented mud. Azerbaijan has more mud volcanoes than any country on Earth, and standing among them at noon feels like trespassing on another planet. Half-day tours from Baku run USD 30–40; going independently by taxi from Gobustan town costs less if you can gather a group, since the volcano field needs a 4x4-ish vehicle for the last stretch.
Lahic, the coppersmiths' village
Head northwest into the Greater Caucasus. From Ismayilli, a spectacular single-lane road hugs the Girdimanchay gorge up to Lahic, a stone village where the same families have hammered copperware for centuries and the cobbled main street doubles as the workshop display. The dialect here is closer to Persian than Azerbaijani. Stay in a homestay (USD 20–25 with two enormous meals), buy tea from a smith who will engrave your name into a pot while you wait, and walk the terraced trails above the village. Getting there is the adventure: marshrutka from Baku to Ismayilli (USD 4), then a shared taxi up the gorge.
Sheki and the Khan's Palace
Three hours further along the foothills, Sheki was a caravan city on the Silk Road, and it still has the caravanserai to prove it — you can sleep inside the massive 18th-century one for surprisingly little. The headline is the Khan's Summer Palace: a small building that took ten years to decorate, its shebeke stained-glass windows assembled from thousands of hand-cut pieces without a single nail or drop of glue. Entry is a few dollars with a guide. Eat piti, the local lamb-and-chickpea stew served in its own clay pot with a ritual for crushing the bread, and try Sheki halva, a saffron-bright pastry the town is mildly obsessed with. A half-day side trip to the ancient Albanian church in Kish village rounds it out.
The night train back
Sheki's station lies out of town at Sheki (Şəki) halt; the overnight train trundles back to Baku in about nine hours, with a four-berth kupe costing roughly USD 8–10 — clean sheets, endless tea from the samovar, and sunrise over the steppe as you roll into the capital. Book a day ahead at the station or via the ADY app.
When to go
May–June and September–October are ideal; Baku is windy year-round and the mountains get snow by November. Budget USD 25–35 a day. Cash is still king outside Baku.
