Full-day tour to Gobustan (petroglyphs), Mud Volcanoes and Absheron peninsular (castles, Ateshgar temple, Yanar Dag burning hillside)
My 2 friends and I went on a long interesting tour with Vadim, firstly 2 hours to the south of Baku to see mud volcanoes, petroglyphs and the Gobustan museum. We travelled comfortably in Vadim's 4x4 car along the spectacular coast of the Caspian Sea, and he described what we were going to see as he drove. The only difficulty with this was that the passengers in the back couldn't always hear him clearly. I would have liked more time to walk around the museum exhibits, but we had many other things to visit. We then travelled another 2 hours to the east of Baku to the Absheron peninsular, where there were many "nodding donkey" oil wells, still in use. We visited the Zoroastrian (fire worshippers) Temple at Ateshgar and the continuously-burning 'fire mountain' at Yanar Dag, as well as 2 castles and the Qala archaeological museum - all the sights were very interesting and unusual, and we spent longer than scheduled there, but Vadim was very patient even though it was a long day's driving, returning to Baku after 8pm. It was a fascinating day, helped by Vadim's local knowledge.
