Baku

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is one of the most surprising cities in the world — an ancient walled old town on the Caspian Sea surrounded by the most extraordinary explosion of oil-wealth architecture in the post-Soviet world. The Flame Towers, three steel-and-glass skyscrapers in the shape of flames visible from across the city, have become the symbol of a country that has used its petroleum revenues to transform its capital at extraordinary speed. The Icherisheher (old city), a Unesco World Heritage Site enclosed within medieval walls on a headland above the Caspian, is the historical heart — a labyrinth of lanes containing the 15th-century Palace of the Shirvanshah (a superb complex of mausoleums, baths and halls), the enigmatic Maiden Tower (purpose still debated by scholars) and restored caravanserais. The Boulevard along the Caspian seafront, the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre (a spectacular undulating building by Zaha Hadid) and the carpet museum (shaped like a folded carpet) represent the new Baku. The Nizami Street shopping district and the restaurants around Fountain Square represent everyday Baku life. Azerbaijani cuisine — plov (saffron rice with meat and dried fruit), dolma, qutab (stuffed flatbreads), lamb dishes — reflects both Persian and Turkic influences. Day trips to Gobustan (prehistoric petroglyphs and mud volcanoes) and the fire-burning hillside of Yanar Dag are excellent.