Gobustan, the Mud Volcanoes and a Free Heydar Aliyev Ticket

Nine stops, and one of them comes with a ticket in the price: the Heydar Aliyev Center, Zaha Hadid's building, named the finest of 2015 and now run as a museum. Gobustan is the first stop and the oldest thing on the route. Rock carvings up to 20,000 years old, cut into a place people settled and used for a very long time, and on the World Heritage list. The mud volcanoes come next. They erupt continuously and exist in only a handful of countries. The mud is held to be good for the skin, and if you bring an empty bottle you can fill it for nothing. Then the Bibi-Heybat mosque, the spiritual centre for Muslims in this region and one of the major pieces of Islamic architecture in Azerbaijan. The route also takes in the first oil-producing park, Deniz Mall, which is the largest shopping centre in Baku, and the House of Government, the most imposing building in the city. Ateshgah, the fire temple, carries Persian and Indian inscriptions and was used for Hindu, Sikh and Zoroastrian worship. It was built in the 17th and 18th centuries. Yanar Dag closes the day: natural gas burning out of the hillside, odourless, and alight for more than 10,000 years through rain and snow.