Ganja — City of Treasures

Ganja is Azerbaijan's second-largest city and one of the oldest in the Caucasus, an important stop on the Great Silk Road. This two-day trip is for those who've already seen Baku and want to go deeper — into the city that gave the world a great poet, and to one of the region's most beautiful mountain lakes.

We start at the mausoleum of Nizami Ganjavi, a poet whose works are part of the golden fund of world literature. Ganja is Nizami's birthplace, and his mausoleum has long been a place of pilgrimage for poets and literature lovers from around the world. The current building was built in 1991 on his presumed burial site, itself on the site of two older mausoleums.

Next is the historic centre with the ensemble of Sheikh Bahauddin, an architect and astronomer: the Juma Mosque, a caravanserai, and the Chokek bathhouse. The Juma Mosque, also known as the Shah Abbas Mosque, was built in 1606 and has a remarkable feature — at exactly noon the shadow from its western wall disappears, which for centuries served as a precise signal for midday prayer.

About seven kilometres from the city stands the Imamzade mausoleum, one of Azerbaijan's most revered shrines. The complex was built in stages starting in the 14th century around the tomb of a son of the fifth Shia Imam, gradually growing from a single tomb into a whole religious complex also known as the Goy Mosque.

The Chokek bathhouse, a two-hall hamam once visited by Shah Abbas himself, has been under UNESCO protection since 2002.

One of Ganja's most unexpected sights is the Bottle House. Architect Ibrahim Jafarov decorated the facade of his own home with 50,000 glass bottles to commemorate those who died in World War II; a portrait of the builder survives beneath the cornice.

We'll also stop at a late-19th-century Russian church, where services are still held on weekends, and walk through Khan's Garden, a large green park in the south of the city — a good place to catch your breath after a full day.

We stay overnight in Ganja, and in the morning head to Lake Goygol, one of the most beautiful mountain lakes in the world. Its crystal-blue basin is ringed by dense forest, and if you climb the rocks along the shore you can reach a beech forest with viburnum, spindle-tree and wild rose thickets. In the evening we head back to Baku.

The route is a 2-day, 1-night trip. The price is for a group of up to 7 people. The meeting and finishing point is wherever you're staying in Baku. Message me on WhatsApp to arrange the programme and dates.