Caucasus Day 0: Baku

/ alliwanders

I arrived in Baku right at rush hour last night. It was getting dark when I got to my hotel so my first impressions of Azerbaijan are crazy traffic, lots of police, and some amazing architecture.

Today was my zero day before my tour starts tomorrow. Not zero in that I did nothing but that I had zero plans. I’m going to be very scheduled the next 2 weeks so today I just wandered. I had no guidebook, no travel notes, just Google Maps downloaded so I could find my way back to my hotel. I took lots of photos with the hope that my tour guide will explain all tomorrow. I’ll save those pics that I’ll revisit on tomorrow’s tour, here’s some others…

The Old Town is surrounded by walls
A Belle Epoque look to many of the buildings
Souvenir shops but nothing too tacky
Old meets new
Grand Prix next weekend, fencing and seating going up everywhere
“Baku Boulevard” runs ~2 miles with a waterfront promenade and lovely park. There was an army of workers sweeping, cleaning, scrubbing = spotless.
This magnificent building anchors the other end, it’s a mall! Totally western inside with Costa Coffee, Benetton, Cinnabon and western pop music playing
The Flame Towers
I’m calling this the Cannoli building…
Everything just perfect
The Crescent Hotel
A Caspian Sea Captain
Wandering back thru the Old Town; this mosque dates from 1078!
Palace of the Shirvanshahs. 12-15th C. Not really that interesting, lots of small stone walled rooms

And that was my great day. Sun, sea, wind, trees, architecture, history, discovery and got my 17,000 steps in 🙂