Gobustan Mud Volcanoes and Absheron Day Tour Baku

Gobustan National Park and the Rock Art Museum

Gobustan lies about 65 kilometres south of Baku, on a dry ridge above the Caspian coast. UNESCO listed the Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape because its boulders carry many thousands of carvings of hunters, animals, dancers and reed boats, made over a very long period of prehistory. Anyone planning a Gobustan tour from Baku will spend most of the visit walking the stone paths between the caves and painted rocks with the guide.

The modern Rock Art Museum at the entrance is a good place to start, because it explains the carvings and shows the tools and finds from the area. Many travellers ask whether Gobustan is worth visiting; the answer is yes if you like open-air archaeology and wide views. Comfortable shoes and a hat matter here, since there is little shade. Depending on the option you choose, Gobustan entrance tickets are either included or paid at the gate.

The mud volcanoes near Gobustan

Azerbaijan has hundreds of mud volcanoes, more than almost any other country, and the ones near Gobustan are the easiest to visit on a mud volcanoes day trip from Baku. They are small grey cones where cold mud and gas push slowly up through the surface and pop in soft bubbles, in a bare landscape that many visitors compare to the moon.

The last stretch is an unpaved track, so we transfer to off-road vehicles for a short, bumpy ride to the craters, and this transfer is included in the tour. You get time to walk around the cones and take photographs. Mud from the craters is not hot and you should not step onto wet areas. In rainy weather the track can be too slippery, and the guide may skip this stop for safety.

Yanar Dag and the Ateshgah Fire Temple on the Absheron peninsula

Baku sits on the Absheron peninsula, where natural gas seeps up through the rock. At Yanar Dag, a low hillside north of the city, that gas burns in a continuous line of flames that looks best in the late afternoon and at dusk. It is one of the most popular stops for anyone searching for Yanar Dag tickets or the Yanar Dag opening hours; the site normally stays open into the evening, but hours change by season.

The Ateshgah of Baku is a walled pentagon of small cells around a central altar, built in the 17th and 18th centuries where pilgrims once came to worship fire. Today it is a museum with figures and displays that show how visitors lived here. Together the two stops explain why Azerbaijan is called the Land of Fire, and they make a good pair for anyone asking how to see the Baku Fire Temple in one day.

Bibiheybat Mosque and the first oil well

Bibiheybat Mosque stands on the shore south of the city centre. A mosque was first built here in the 13th century around the shrine of Hakima Khanum, was demolished in 1936, and was rebuilt in the late 1990s. The result is a bright, calm building with a large courtyard, and the tour stops for a short visit outside prayer times.

Close by is the site of the first industrially drilled oil well, from 1846, which shows how Baku became one of the earliest oil cities in the world. It is a quick, easy stop that gives useful context for the whole day. Please dress modestly for the mosque, with shoulders and knees covered. On Baku Grand Prix race dates the schedule changes and these two stops may be left out.

The Heydar Aliyev Centre

The tour ends with a photo stop at the Heydar Aliyev Centre, a cultural building designed by Zaha Hadid and opened in 2012. Its white surface rises from the plaza in a single fold with no straight lines, and it is one of the best-known modern buildings in the Caucasus.

This stop is for sightseeing and photographs rather than a full museum visit, so plan for about half an hour outside. If you want to see the exhibitions inside, come back on another day; the centre's opening hours are set by the centre and change by season. The contrast between this futuristic shape and the ancient carvings at Gobustan is what makes the day memorable.