Baku, Azerbaijan 2016

General:

• With this post I intend to give a few ideas and recommendations about visiting Baku
• As a brief introduction, Baku is the economic center of Azerbaijan thanks to the oil industry in the Caspian Sea. Most population is Muslim, mainly Shiite as well as in Iran. Nevertheless it is quite an open country despite the tiring visa requirements
• The cheapest way to go from the airport to the city center is a bus (1.2 Manat, a bit less than $1) connecting with 28 May metro station, around 2km from Old Baku
• The barrier with the language is tough. It is still very hard to communicate in English with locals

Sightseeing:

• The city offers a mix between the traditional old Baku, surrounded by walls, and modernity surrounding the city center
• There are free tours for Old Baku starting at 10am, leaving from Iceri Seher metro station
• From the Old city there is a good view of the Flame Towers, especially from Maiden Tower. Walking around Baku Old city is beautiful; somehow it makes me feel I am in the beautiful Spanish city of Toledo
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Sunset from Baku bay is beautiful and there are several gardens nearby where to have a pleasant walk
  
  
  
  
• Architecture of the Heyder Aliyev Cultural Center looks very nice externally, surrounded by a nice garden. Apparently it has a Museum about former president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, who as far as I understood, boosted the development of modern Baku while protecting Old Baku at the same time. There is metro station less than 1km from this cultural spot (Nariman Narimanov metro station)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Yanar Dag curious: bus 217 from Koroglu metro station for only 0.3 Manat each way. The impressive fact about this place is that it is a natural gas fire blazing continuosly
  

Local lifestyle:

• The city offers good communication with two main metro lines and several buses. After some time living in Dubai, I was surprised how easy and nice it is Baku to walk: THERE IS NO NEED FOR CAR unless you target visiting other cities in the country
• Locals enjoy outdoors when the weather is nice (around 20 to 30 degrees in the summer). In the summer you can see streets full of people and you feel a nice vibe
• Tea is widely consumed at almost every corner, and guests in restaurants and hotels are generally welcomed with tea
• It is common to see groups of mainly men in the streets playing Backgamon or domino while drinking tea
  
• Local cuisine offers a wide variety but I only had time to try a few nice dishes: pomegranate salad, dushbara soup (with small lamb dumplings) or pormidor (basically an omelette with tomato on top which was very nice):
  
  
  
  

End of the post:

• Visiting Baku is highly recommended: I was surprised how open, easy to walk and good looking city it is
• I continued my trip going to Georgia by train. Finding Baku Central Station was a bit difficult, but much more the communication with the personnel selling the ticket, which costs only 30 Manat (less than $20). There is a daily connection from Baku to Tbilisi at 20:30 in a sleeping train but THE TRIP TAKES 14 HOURS, arriving Tbilisi at 10:45 next day 
  
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