Gobustan + Absheron tour

The price for the tour, (in US dollars), depends on a number of tourists:

Standard package*: English speaking guide, Personal Driver, Transportation according to program, Comfortable vehicle with air conditioner, Water 0,5 L per day per person

Budget package**: Personal driver, Transportation according to program, Comfortable vehicle with air conditioner, Water 0,5 L per day per person

GOBUSTAN

On the way to Gobustan you will see the Bibi Heybət Mosque, a fascinating view of Şixov Beach, old oil pumps, dazzling seascapes, and intriguing semi-deserts.

The Gobustan State Reserve is full of archaeological monuments and has over 6, 000 cave painting. Here you will see ancient human bones, work tools used in back to thousand years ago during the Mesolithic period. Then, you will advance to the mountain in order to see real rock paintings in the open air museum. Distinctive, highly stylized thousand images showing of early man, animals, battles, ritual dances, bulls, warriors with spears in hand, camel caravan, and depictions of the sun and heavens, called petroglyphs, distinguishes Gobustan art.  Most of these images were made by pecking, grinding, or scratching and carved a design into a rock’s surface and dating back between 5-20,000 years left by the hunter-gatherer people who populated this region in times past.

This is one of the largest known concentrations of petroglyphs and is located on the Gobustan State Preserve. Rock art provides a window into the past rituals, beliefs, and artistic abilities of its creators. Because of its scientific, aesthetic, and religious significance, Gobustan become most popular state park and a valuable mine of Azerbaijan. People interested in visiting the petroglyphs can take our half day tours to Gobustan all year long.

Ateshgah Fire Temple

Your tour starts at Atashgah (Fire Temple) which located in the village Suraxani 30 km away from Baku. It is situated on a rock where natural emergences of gas on the surface have been burning for thousands of years. Here you will learn more about  one of the most remarkable Zoroastrian temples which was actually built by 18th-century Indian Shiva devotees

Yanardag

Your excursion continues on the other most famous and popular tourist places of the “eternal flame” in Azerbaijan is the mountain of Yanar Dag, which is located near Mammadli village 25 km to the north from Baku. In the 13th century, Marco Polo mentioned many natural gas flames burning spontaneously from the territory of Abşeron Peninsula. One of such places Yanardag (burning mountain from azerb) still exists. Natural gas burning on its slope from ancient times. Meter long tongues of fire are licking the stratified earth approximately for 10 m in width, searing those who approached too close. People occupy the benches to watch the blazing hill in the evening, when its sight is most effective. Here you will chance to discover why Azerbaijan nickname is “Land of Flames”.

Qala State Preserve

Our Apsheron peninsula tour will finish at the Qala State ethnographic Museum, which is an ideal place to get acquainted with traditions and way of life of the inhabitants of peninsula at ancient time.  This open-air park features several furnished traditional-style Apsheron buildings (house, smithy, potters workshop) set amid a wide range of archaeological finds and petroglyphs, both originals and reconstructions. All together, they help to get an idea of the life of the medieval people in Azerbaijan. Main exhibits are petroglyphs covering the period from the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. to the Middle Ages, gavaldash (tambourine stone), ceramics, domestic and adornment items, weapons and coins, conserved remnants of an ancient residential complex etc.  As long as the museum is interactive, you have a chance to see, touch, and take pictures. During the excursion, you can even try to bake Azerbaijan traditional  bread in a common oven, weave a carpet, muddy in pottery or iron forge from professional masters for extra payment.