One Day in Baku, Walked Rather Than Driven

Baku’s centre is compact, and that is the fact a single day should be built on. Everything worth seeing on a first visit sits within a walk of everything else, and the moment you get into a car you have spent the day travelling.

This is one continuous route, morning to evening, with no driving at all.

Morning: inside the walls

Start in the Old City, early. The lanes are narrow, the stone is warm, and before the tour groups arrive it feels like a place people live rather than a site.

Do not plan it. The Old City is small enough that getting lost is the correct approach, and the walls mean you cannot get lost for long.

Give it two hours. Longer if you stop for tea, which you should.

Late morning: the museums, but only one

There is more than one serious museum in the centre. Pick a single one.

The carpet museum is the obvious choice for a first visit. Partly for the collection, and partly because it explains something about the country that the buildings do not.

An hour and a half. Two if you read everything, and you will not.

Lunch

Eat properly rather than quickly. This is not a city where a sandwich on a bench is the right decision.

Look for places where a menu is short. The kitchens that do a few things do them well, and the food is the part of Baku that visitors most consistently underrate before arriving.

Afternoon: the modern city

Walk out of the old centre and into the newer one. Wide streets, nineteenth century oil money architecture, and a scale that changes every few blocks.

This part of the day works best without a list. You are looking at a city, not ticking off sites, and the point is the contrast with the morning.

If the heat is heavy, this is the section to shorten. Sit down, drink something cold, and let the afternoon pass.

Evening: the boulevard

Walk down to the water and turn along the boulevard. It runs for kilometres, it is flat, and it is where the city goes when the day cools.

Time it for sunset. The light comes off the Caspian, the towers behind you catch it, and the whole thing costs nothing.

Dinner and the end of the day

Eat in the streets behind the boulevard rather than on it. The views are better on the water and the food is better one street back.

Finish with tea. It is what people here do, it takes as long as you let it, and it is the right end to a day spent walking.

What this day deliberately leaves out

Gobustan, Absheron, the fire sites, the mud volcanoes. All of them are worth doing and none of them fit.

Each one is a half day minimum once you include the drive. Adding one to this day means cutting the walk in half and spending the difference in a car.

If you only have one day, spend it on foot in the city. If you have two, give the second one to Gobustan or Absheron and keep this route intact.

If the day starts at the airport

Book the arrival transfer. The first hour then goes on the road rather than on a negotiation at a kerb.

Leave the bags in left luggage or at the hotel before you start. This route does not work with a suitcase.

Arranging it

If your day starts at the airport, book the arrival transfer so the first hour is not spent negotiating. Everything after that is walking, and walking needs no arrangement at all.