We were heading back to town now, with a first stop in the outskirts of Baku, at Bibiheybat Mosque. It was not the mosque though, that we were interested in, but its square, offering nice view over Baku’s port.

From the mosque we did proceed to our last official stop, the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre / (Heydər Əliyev Mərkəzi). We spent some time looking at the building and its unusual architecture from the outside, though eventually did proceed to the inside.

The inside – next to a different view on the building itself – featured a number of exhibitions on various topics (some of which fairly random … some fairly good, other less so).

From the center it was – via a market (for some final souvenir shopping) – back to the hotel. With our flights scheduled in the very early morning, we knew a short night was a head of us and with half the group being sick, we did not manage a final group dinner.

The trip has been an interesting one – covering three countries, a total of seven UNESCO world heritage sites (six cultural, one natural), two mosques and at least 30 churches and monasteries – all of which at high pace.

During the trip the similarities – but also differences between the three countries have become obvious – from religion, food, drinks to the development after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting political systems.

Though – what did become apparent – even with this long and (according to the trip brochure) all-encompasing trip, we had just scratched the surface – with all three countries deserving a return … though then (at least for me) with a focus on nature and less so on culture and history.

After a day of sightseeing, we were hungry, so made our way to a restaurant quickly. After dinner we ended up in a cafe for tea, baklava and hookah (for those, who wanted – not for me though), afterwards some of us wanted to proceed for a drink with a view.

We somehow assumed, the flame towers would be a good place to do so (is there a better building for a rooftop bar?), so we made our way through town to the funicular, got on the last train of the day and eventually made it into Highland Park. We had another walk over to the viewing platform for some nighttime views of town. From here it was back to the flame towers, where – to our surprise – we ran into a construction site with two of the three towers closed off and parts of the third tower also not finished. Well – needless to say, there was no such thing as a sky or rooftop bar here. We ended up heading back towards the old town and finally found a good option there … directly looking at the flame towers.

We made it into Baku in the late afternoon. After some time, to freshen up (or an attempt in getting opera tickets), we left the hotel again – for some first exploration of town.

We made the short walk over to the gate into the old town, to then head into the direction of the waterfront. There were obviously some VIPs in the area, some of the narrow streets and pathways in the old town were essentially blocked off and we had to find ways around – – though eventually we made it out of old town and down to the waterfront and promenade. We were first heading towards the Ferris Wheel, passing by the massive flag pole (of course with flag – and once upon a time the world’s biggest … well until Tajikistan came out with theirs), Baku’s little Venice (perfect for kitsch-lovers) and the carpet museum. We eventually hit a major construction site, where we turned around now heading back along the waterfront.

We soon left the waterfront and were now looking at the modern shopping area up to fountain square, where we also ended up having dinner.