Gobustan Rock Art and Mud Volcanoes Half-Day Tour Baku

Bibiheybat Mosque on the bay south of Baku

Bibiheybat Mosque stands on the shore of the Caspian Sea a few kilometres south of central Baku, and it is the first stop of the tour. The original thirteenth-century mosque was built over the tomb of Ukeyma Khanum, a descendant of the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and became one of the most important shrines of Islamic architecture in Azerbaijan. The historic building was destroyed in the 1930s, and the present mosque, completed in the late 1990s, follows the forms of Shirvan-Absheron architecture with a turquoise dome, two minarets and interiors of carved stone and mirror work.

The visit lasts about 20 minutes and is a quiet, respectful one; the mosque is a working place of worship and a pilgrimage site for Muslims from across the region. Women are asked to cover their hair and everyone removes shoes inside. On the way the guide points out the spot where the world's first industrial oil well was drilled in 1846.

Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape (UNESCO)

The Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape covers rocky hills on the edge of the semi-desert about 70 kilometres south-west of Baku and was listed by UNESCO in 2007. More than 6,000 petroglyphs carved over roughly 40,000 years show long-horned aurochs, wild goats, dancing figures, hunters with bows and the reed boats that once crossed the Caspian. A Gobustan tour from Baku is the easiest way to see them, as the site has no public transport and the carvings are spread across boulder fields at Boyukdash and Kichikdash.

Your guide walks you along the paved trail among the rocks for about an hour, showing the clearest carvings and the Gaval Dash, a natural stone that rings like a tambourine when struck. Gobustan National Park opening hours run daily from morning to late afternoon, and the ticket is included in the default option. Wear comfortable shoes, as the path is uneven in places.

The Gobustan petroglyph museum

Before the outdoor trail, the tour visits the modern Gobustan museum at the entrance to the reserve. Opened in 2011, it is one of the best-designed archaeological museums in the Caucasus, with interactive screens, 3D reconstructions of the landscape as it looked when the Caspian was much higher, and replicas of the tools, bones and pottery found in the rock shelters. It explains how the climate changed from forest to desert and how the carvings evolved from large naturalistic animals to small schematic figures.

Allow about 20 to 30 minutes here; the exhibits are in Azerbaijani, English and Russian and the guide adds context. There are clean toilets and a small shop, which is the only commercial stop on the tour. The museum makes the open-air carvings far easier to read, so our guides always visit it first.

The Gobustan mud volcanoes

Azerbaijan has nearly 400 mud volcanoes, more than any other country, and the Gobustan group is the most accessible. The cones, rarely more than a few metres high, sit on a bare plateau where methane pushes cold grey mud up through cracks in the clay; every few seconds a bubble swells and bursts with a soft plop. Occasionally a mud volcano erupts spectacularly, but on a normal day the scene is calm and strange, like a lunar landscape within sight of the Caspian.

The last stretch to the mud volcanoes is an unpaved track reached by 4x4 transfer, which is included in the default option together with the entry ticket. You spend about half an hour walking among the cones; keep to the dry ground, as the mud is deep and stains clothes. On rainy days the track can become impassable and this stop may be skipped, in which case the guide extends the time at Gobustan.

The drive along the Caspian shore and the return to Baku

The road from Baku to Gobustan runs along the Caspian coast past oil fields, the port of Sangachal and the brown hills of the Absheron peninsula, and the guide uses the hour-long drive to explain the history of the oil boom, the Soviet period and modern Azerbaijan. The tour is deliberately designed without shopping stops, so the whole half day is spent on the sights and the drive, which is why it suits travellers with only one or two days in Baku.

You are back in the city by about 14:00, with drop-off at your hotel. Many travellers combine this Gobustan half-day tour with an afternoon in the Old City or on the Baku Boulevard. The private option uses a comfortable people carrier or SUV, can pick you up from any address and runs the same route in about four hours at your own pace.