Sunday is a very special day for our family. We’re all free from work and classes, so we have the freedom to spend the day as we wish. Sometimes we enjoy a leisure day at home, other times we spend the day walking around the city, checking out a new dining place or even hitting the road and visiting some of the sights located outside the capital.
Our plan depends mostly on the weather. Because… do you know what the unofficial name of Baku is? 🙂 – It’s City of Winds! Most of the time we have to fight our way through the strong wind blowing in the city throughout most of the year. With two small kids… I’ll be first to admit that I don’t mind staying home on a windy day.
However, we enjoyed a rather beautiful day last Sunday which allowed us to do almost anything. And we did! 🙂
We started the day with a theatre performance at the Azerbaijan State Russian Drama Theatre. It’s a lovely place where we’ve been enjoying fantastic performances for kids. We do this almost every Sunday. It’s fun, refreshing, and even educational. 🙂
After the performance we would typically go somewhere to grab lunch, but since we had a late breakfast, we decided that we should better use the sunshine and take a walk at the Baku Boulevard. This is a national park along the city’s seafront. It’s very beautiful and offers many attractions both for kids and adults. It’s the place to be on a good sunny day! Or a nice summer evening… 🙂
Since my grandma is visiting us for a few weeks we decided that we might as well show her some of the most famous sights of the country: Ateshgah and Yanar Dag – both located in the suburbs of Baku.
Ateshgah is a fire temple which was used as a Zoroastrian place of worship. It has a castle-like structure and consists of different cells for monks and a tetrapillar-altar of fire in the middle which has been lit by natural flame until the middle of the 20th century. Now the fire is still burning by gas piped from the city and the whole place bears the mystic atmosphere of past pilgrimages and Zoroastrian philosophy.
Yanar Dag, meaning “the burning mountain”, is located in the Absheron district near Baku. Natural gas is emitted continuously on its surface and the fire is never extinguished. Pretty amazing, huh? 🙂
By the way, I personally think that this was my grandma’s favorite sight. She had never seen anything like it!
Let me know what are some of your favorite places to visit in Baku? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
See also:
Things to do in Baku: 10 Fun Travel Challenges
15 Curious Facts about the Maiden Tower, Baku, Azerbaijan
5 Things I Never Expected to Fall in Love with in Azerbaijan
5 Things You Can Learn from the Azerbaijani People
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