Gobustan and Absheron Heritage Tour
Start the tour at 09:00 am with a visit to the mud volcanoes, if the weather is suitable for a road trip. Mud volcanoes form in places where underground gas pockets have found a weak spot in the earth and force their way to the surface. More than a thousand mud volcanoes are known to exist in the world, and around 400 of them are located in the coastal area of Azerbaijan.
Visit the Gobustan open-air museum, filled with neolithic rock drawings where 6,000 inscriptions, or petroglyphs, are preserved. Also known as the Museum of Petroglyphs, Gobustan is a mountainous area in the southeast of the Major Caucasian ridge, located 60 km from Baku. Ancient primitive dwellings, caves, sites, and more than 100 thousand material culture objects have been discovered there. Every year, this remarkable stone picture gallery attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.
Observe the Roman inscription on the stone and the location where scenes from "Agent 007" were filmed.
Take a brief halt at Bibi Heybat Mosque, home to 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 to see the famous Ateshgah, the Fire Temple. It has been one of the main settlements of worshippers in Azerbaijan since the second century. Often called the "Fire Temple of Baku," Ateshgah is a castle-like religious temple in Surakhani, a suburb of Baku. Based on Persian and Indian inscriptions, the temple was used as a place of worship by Hindus, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians.
Arrive at Yanar Dag (Azerbaijani: Yanar Dağ, meaning "burning mountain"), a natural gas fire that blazes continuously on a hillside on the Absheron peninsula. Flames rise 3 meters into the air from a thin, porous sandstone layer. The Yanar Dag flame has been burning continuously for 3,000-4,000 years.
End of tour.
