Fires Attila and Marco Polo Wrote Down, Dated 4,000 to 5,000 Years Old

A day that runs from Stone Age caves to a building named the most beautiful in the world in 2014. Gobustan is one of the three places in Azerbaijan under UNESCO protection, listed in 2007. It holds two museums: the open-air one, where the walk goes through the caves past the rock paintings and the ancient kitchen, and an interactive one built in 2011. Of the roughly 800 mud volcanoes in the world, 354 are in Azerbaijan, about 40% of them. The ground they make is the reason people say afterwards that they have been on Mars. The mud is used for skin, joints and bones. Bibi-Heybat mosque holds the tomb of relatives of the Prophet Muhammad, and near it stands the first industrially drilled oil well in the world, finished in 1846, where the modern petroleum industry starts. Lunch is at a local restaurant, with a wide choice of Azerbaijani dishes. Ateshgah is where fire worship, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism meet on one site. Fire was held sacred here long before Islam, and Novruz, which began as a religious holiday of the fire worshippers, is still celebrated as a national one. Yanar Dag is where that belief starts. These eternal lights appear in the annals of Attila, king of the Huns, and in Marco Polo, and scientists put the age of the holy hearth at four to five thousand years. The Heydar Aliyev Center closes the day. Cancel at least 24 hours before departure for a full refund.