GUARANTEED DEPARTURE 

A fascinating tour of the city, both old and new is a great introduction to Baku and the history of the country. Baku has pretty much everything you would expect of a historic city with a 2 millions inhabitants. The walled Old-city area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the surrounding central area is delightfully cosmopolitan with attractive turn of the 20th century buildings with a good balance of local and Western-orientated businesses.

Though known to very few Westerners until the recent oil boom, Baku was one of the five biggest cities in the USSR and before that the world's most important petro-town. Baku was significant in the fortunes of such varied characters as Stalin, Zarathustra, Shell Oil, Gary Kasparov and the Nobel Prize. Lust for its oilfields was the main reason Hitler marched east and got bogged down in WWII.

Few cities in the world are changing as quickly and nowhere else in the Caucasus do East and West blend as seamlessly or as chaotically. It will definitely leave an unforgettable impression and there is no doubt that you will have a good memories of delicious national cuisine, hospitable people and enjoyable time there.

Day 1: Arrival in Baku
Check-in at the hotel. Please keep in mind that check in time starts after 14:00. Free day. 
Overnight in the hotel  

Day 2: Sightseeing tour around Baku 
09:00 Breakfast at the hotel 
10:00 Start the tour around Baku. Firstly, you will be taken to Upland Park located on a hill in the western part of the city. This is the best place to see the city and the Baku Bay. You can take a little tram ride up the side of the hill to reach this spot. 

Later the tour proceeds along the waterfront promenade. Then you will be guided to the Old Town - 'Icheri Sheher'. You will see the highlights of Icheri Sheher including the Palace of the Shirvans (the most striking example of the medieval palace structures in Azerbaijan, dating to the middle of 15th century); Maiden's Tower (the ancient, eight storey fortress originally built as a fire beacon); visit Friday (Juma) Mosque, antiques and carpet shops. For extra fee lunch can be arranged in the national cuisine restaurant. 
After lunch (14:00 - 18:00 ) we get acquainted with the Baku Boulevard and have a boat trip on the Baku Bay. You will be introduced with the interesting facts and legends of the largest lake in the world better known as Caspian Sea. This favorite vacation spot of Baku citizens and guests of the capital is also one of the attractions of the city, which in 2009 celebrated its 100 anniversary. Our today's tour ends with a visit to Heydar Aliyev Center - a cultural center that includes the Auditorium (convention center), a museum, exhibition halls, administrative offices. The project center has been designed by renowned British architect Zaha Hadid. 
Free time 
Overnight in the hotel 

Day 3: Sightseeing tour around Absheron peninsula 
09:00 Breakfast at the hotel 
10:00 Departure for excursion to the nature reserve "Gobustan". This is an open-air museum littered with Neolithic rock drawings. Just 65km south of Baku, Gobustan has some 4000 inscriptions that go back 12,000 years (with some 2000 year old Latin graffiti to boot). The well-preserved sketches display ancient populations travelling on reed boats; men hunt antelope and wild bulls, women dance. The famed Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl returned many times to Azerbaijan between 1961 and his death in 2002 to study the site, which he argued to be evidence that modern-day Scandinavians migrated north through the Caucasus in prehistoric times. He found similarities in the drawings to those found in Scandinavia, particularly some in Alta, Norway. According to Icelandic Sagas, written in the 13 th century, the Norse God Odin (Wotan) migrated from the Caucasus in the first century AD. The museum at Gobustan is especially good with interactive displays showing how the surrounding area would have looked over the millennia.
For extra fee lunch can be arranged in the national cuisine restaurant. 

15:00 After lunch you will visit Ateshgah - the Fire Worshippers' Temple located in the village of Surakhany. It was built on land where natural gas burned eternally by Zoroastrian believers who travelled from as far as the province of Multan in India to worship. These ancient fires are believed to have given Azerbaijan its name, which is thought by some researchers to mean the 'Land of Fires'.

The tour will finish with 2-3 hours excursion to ethnographic Open-Air Museum "Gala" that is about a 40-minute drive from Baku. The museum is created on an archaeological site. The village is five thousand years, nevertheless there are still some neighborhoods that have survived to the present day. During the tour you will get acquainted with the ancient dwellings, with the life of that time, traditions, with methods of farming. Participants will be told about the way of living of people who lived here many centuries ago, you will see the real objects of that time.

On the way back to the hotel we will visit Yanar Dag (Fire Mountain) that is next to this small village in the Absheron peninsula. The word "Yanar" in Azeri language means "burning", and "Dagh" - "mountain". And this is real a burning mountain - not metaphorically, but literally. There used to be a lot of similar places in Absheron where natural gas was coming out from the earth to the surface, but with the start of mass extraction of oil and gas in Absheron these places started to disappear. At present, this is the only place of this unique natural phenomenon left in Azerbaijan. Transfer to the hotel. Free time. 

Day 4: Check-out from the hotel – departure 
Breakfast at the hotel. Free time. Departure.

Costs: only $300 USD per person in 3* hotel in DBL/TWN accommodation

Guaranteed dates: 

13.02.2017 – 16.02.2017  
13.03.2017 – 16.03.2017 
13.04.2017 – 16.04.2017  
05.05.2017 – 08.05.2017 
13.06.2017 – 16.06.2017  
13.07.2017 – 16.07.2017  
13.08.2017 – 16.08.2017 

Price includes:

• Accommodation in Diplomat 3 * hotel in double room
• Breakfasts
• Comfortable transport during the excursions
• English-speaking guide
• Entry fees to the museums
• A bottle of water per person per day

Price does not include:

• Air tickets
• Transfers: Airport – Hotel – Airport
• E-visa
• Medical insurance
• Lunches and dinners
• Alcohol beverages
• Extras in the hotel and during the excursions

Note: Supplement for a Single Standard room occupancy for the whole tour is $63 USD
* For the convenience of the tourists it is kindly asked to inform us about the early check-in or late check-out
* The hotel reserves the right to charge extra for early check-in or late check-out
Check-in earlier than 06:00 am: a surcharge of 100% of the daily rate.
Check-in after 06:00 am but before 14:00: a surcharge of 50% of the daily rate.
* Payment of confirmed order must be made at least 10 days before the planned date of arrival to the hotel.
Children policy:
*Children under 2 years old participate in tour for free.
*Children from 2 till 12 participate in tour with 30% discount of the tour’s price.
Reservation policy:
- The company reserves the right to change the order of excursions and sights’ visits, preserving their amount.
- The company reserves the right to change the hotel on similar one or the hotels of higher category.

Attention to customers!
The tour requires a minimum number of participants to avoid cancellation.
The final confirmation of the tour will be announced 30 days prior to the start of the tour!
All purchases are subject to re-confirmation. Customers will be fully refunded if the orders cannot be confirmed.
We reserve the right to cancel the tour and fully refund affected customers although tour company will make every effort to maintain the normal operation.
İn case of insufficient number of tourists (a group considered to be cost-effective consists of four people), the tour agency has the right to cancel the tour no later than 30 days before the tour start date.

Cancellation and penalties:
* Cancellation of confirmed applications earlier than 7 days prior to arrival is not subject to penalties (except visa fee).
* Cancellation of confirmed applications later than 7 days and more than 3 days before the planned arrival: a penalty of 50% of the total cost of the tour.
* Cancellation of confirmed applications later than 3 days, or after the date of the planned arrival: penalty is 100% of the total cost of the tour.