Azerbaijan's name is usually traced to a root meaning fire, and the country earns it literally. Yanar Dag, a hillside outside Baku, has been burning continuously for decades — natural gas seeping through porous sandstone, ignited at some point and never extinguished, a wall of flame a few metres wide at the base of a slope. There is no crater and no volcano. The ground is simply on fire.
Nearby at Ateshgah, a fire temple built around a natural gas vent was used by Zoroastrian, Hindu and Sikh worshippers travelling the trade routes, with inscriptions in Sanskrit and Persian around the courtyard. The natural flame went out in 1969 when the gas field was tapped commercially; it now runs on a pipe.
Azerbaijan also has roughly half the world's mud volcanoes — cold, slow cones that bubble grey clay and occasionally ignite.
Oil built the city
By 1900 the Baku fields were producing something approaching half the world's oil. The Nobel brothers and the Rothschilds were both here, fortunes were made in a decade, and the money went into a belt of mansions around the old city in whatever European style the owner fancied — Venetian Gothic next to French Second Empire next to Moorish Revival, all in the same cream limestone.
A second boom after independence in 1991 produced the newer landmarks: the Flame Towers, three curved glass buildings completed in 2012 covered in LED screens that show flames at night, and Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Center, a white wave of a building with no straight lines that won Design of the Year in 2014.
The walled city
Icherisheher is the medieval core, walled, UNESCO-listed in 2000, with the Shirvanshahs' Palace and the Maiden Tower — a cylindrical stone structure about thirty metres high with a buttress on one side, which nobody has been able to date securely or explain. Proposed functions include a fortress, an observatory, a Zoroastrian fire temple and a lighthouse, and the arguments are ongoing.
The seven below are grouped that way.
The Boulevard and the seafront
Facing the Caspian.
Four Seasons Hotel Baku occupies a building on the seafront boulevard with a spa, a pool and rooms facing both the Caspian and the old city walls. It is the best hotel in the Caucasus.
Four Seasons Hotel Baku
Baku seafront boulevard · 5★ · $$$
Facing both the Caspian and the old city walls
Check availabilityFairmont Baku, Flame Towers sits inside one of the Flame Towers with rooms at height, a spa and the city below on three sides.
Fairmont Baku, Flame Towers
Flame Towers, Baku · 5★ · $$$
Rooms at height inside the city's landmark
Check availabilityJW Marriott Absheron Baku occupies a position on the Boulevard with a spa, a pool and large rooms.
JW Marriott Absheron Baku
Azadliq Square, Baku · 5★ · $$
A spa and pool with large rooms on the Boulevard
Check availabilityBoulevard Hotel Baku sits near the seafront in a restored building with a rooftop and contemporary rooms.
Boulevard Hotel Baku
Near the Baku seafront · 5★ · $$
A restored building with a rooftop
The old city and the centre
Inside and beside the walls.
Shah Palace Luxury Hotel occupies a building within Icherisheher with a small room count, a courtyard and the Maiden Tower a few minutes away.
Shah Palace Luxury Hotel
Icherisheher · 4★ · $$
A small property inside the walls near the Maiden Tower
Check availabilitySahil Hotel sits near the walls with reliable rooms, a pool and the best central value.
Sahil Hotel
Central Baku · 4★ · $$
Reliable rooms and a pool at the best central value
Check availabilityHilton Baku occupies a tower in the centre with a spa, a pool and views across to the Flame Towers.
What we have left off
The apartment rentals across central Baku are excluded, and several occupy oil-boom mansions. They are apartments rather than hotels.
What to do
Go to Yanar Dag after dark, when the flame is at its most absurd, and to Ateshgah in daylight for the inscriptions.
Walk Icherisheher and climb the Maiden Tower, then walk the oil-boom mansion belt around it and notice how many architectural styles fit into six streets.
See the Heydar Aliyev Center, inside and out. The interior is as uncompromising as the exterior and the collections are secondary to the building.
Go to Gobustan, an hour south, where around six thousand rock carvings dating back perhaps twelve thousand years cover the boulders, alongside a field of mud volcanoes.
Eat plov, dolma and the tea, which is served in a pear-shaped glass with jam rather than sugar.
Practical notes
Baku's airport has European and regional connections, thirty minutes from the centre. The metro is cheap and straightforward.
April, May, September and October are best. Summer is hot and humid on the Caspian. Winter is cold and windy — Baku means "city of winds" in one etymology and it is not a metaphor.
Check current visa arrangements, which have changed several times.
Every hotel bookable in Baku
Is the burning hillside natural?
Gas seeps through porous rock at Yanar Dag and has burned continuously for decades. There is no volcano or crater.
What is the Maiden Tower?
A thirty-metre stone tower in the walled city that nobody has securely dated or explained. Theories include a fortress, an observatory and a fire temple.
Old city or seafront?
Old city for the walls and the tower, the Boulevard for the Caspian and the hotels. They adjoin.
How many nights?
Three. Two for the city and one for Gobustan and the fires.