Things to do in Baku

Landmark · Central Baku

The UNESCO-listed medieval core inside its walls — the Maiden Tower, the Shirvanshahs' Palace, caravanserais and narrow lanes, ringed by twenty-first-century towers.

Local tip: Go early morning before the tour groups. The contrast that makes Baku legible is best seen from the Maiden Tower roof: medieval stone in the foreground, glass towers behind, Caspian oil rigs on the horizon.

Nature · Caspian seafront

A seafront promenade running for kilometres along the bay — the city's outdoor living room, busiest on summer evenings.

Local tip: The Little Venice canals and the funicular up to Highland Park are on the same walk. Watch the wind: on a khazri day the boulevard is genuinely unpleasant and everyone is indoors instead.

Culture · Heydar Aliyev Avenue

Zaha Hadid's white wave of a building, one of the most photographed structures in the Caucasus, housing exhibition halls and a classic-car collection.

Local tip: The interior is worth the ticket for the architecture alone. Go on a bright day — the building is designed around light on the curved shell.

Food · Nasimi

The city's main produce market — Caspian fish, pomegranates, walnuts, saffron, cheeses and the best cheap eating in Baku.

Local tip: Buy saffron here rather than in the Old City tourist stalls, and taste before you buy — vendors expect it. Cash or a local card; bargaining is normal and good-natured.

Nature · ~60 km south-west

A UNESCO rock-art site with thousands of petroglyphs up to 40,000 years old, and a landscape of bubbling mud volcanoes on the plain below.

Local tip: The mud volcanoes need a high-clearance vehicle over the last stretch; local drivers wait at the site turn-off. Do both in one half-day, and go on a dry day — the track becomes impassable after rain.

Neighborhood · Central Baku

The pedestrianised shopping spine and the square it feeds into — nineteenth-century oil-boom facades, cafés and the city's main promenading ground.

Local tip: The side streets north of Nizami hold the better independent restaurants; the square itself is priced for visitors. The oil-boom mansions here were built by the same 1900s wealth that funded the Nobel brothers' operations.