Baku and Naftalan Tour Package
Sightseeing, Art & Culture, Nature Tours, Health & Medical, Luxury & Special Occasions
Direction:
Baku-Absheron-Gobustan-Naftalan-Mingachevir-Ganja-Goygol-Dashkesen
Duration:
11 days
In this tour, you will have the chance to explore Baku and surroundings, get the best medical treatments with Naftalan oil at 5* hotel and have sightseeing tours after treatment each day. It means that you will be treated with Naftalan oil and nature at the same time.
Note: It will be quite boring if you just book hotel with treatment :)
Sightseeing:
• Icheri Sheher (literally “Inner Town”) or Old City – the historical and architectural reserve includes the Shirvanshah Palace, Synyk kala minaret, Maiden Tower, Medieval Market Square, Icheri Sheher Archaeological Museum, Seyid Yahya Bakuvi mausoleum, caravanserais, Mollahana, numerous mosques, madrassahs, bath-houses, Baku Khans’ House, also numerous rich residences of the ХIХ century.
• Miniature Books Museum - the gigantic collection of teeny and tiny books
• Highland Park (Dagustu Park) - which commands a breathtaking panorama of Baku.
• Flame towers - Completed in 2012, this trio of sinuous blue-glass skyscrapers forms contemporary Baku’s architectural signature. The design was conceived as a set of flames, driven from the ground up one of the main hills of Baku. Fire symbolizes energy and eternity, and also goes back to the ancient worship of this element.
• Shahidlar Xiyabani - The most notable feature of the park that stretches south from the Flame Towers is a somber row of grave-memorials – Bakuvian victims of the Red Army’s 1990 attack along with early martyrs of the Karabakh conflict. The viewpoint beside the eternal flame offers splendid panoramas across the bay
• Baku National Boulevard - the 2nd longest boulevard in the world, which is the favorite resting place of the Baku residents and capital guests, stretching for a long way along the seashore.
• World’s Second-Tallest Flagmast - A gigantic flag flaps above the Bulvar’s southern tip, hoisted on a 162m flagpole that was the world’s tallest when erected in September 2010
• Carpet Museum - Displaying and explaining a superb collection of Azerbaijani rugs, this 2014 museum building is itself designed like a stylised roll of carpet.
• International Mugham Center - Creation of the International Mugham Center in the City of Baku in order to widely promote in the world the Azerbaijani mugham, proclaimed by UNESCO as Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity The 7.500 sq.m building reminds of the parts of tar, an ancient musical instrument of Azerbaijan. The 3-storey building includes 350-seat concert hall, club, classrooms, recording studio, 80-seat restaurant “Ud”.
• Fountains Square - Endlessly popular with strollers, this leafy piazza forms Central Baku’s natural focus. The fountains for which it is named include one topped by shiny silvered spheres giving fish-eye reflections of the trees and stone facades. And the beautiful statue-inlayed facade of the Nizami Literature Museum
• Domsoviet (Government House) - Baku’s most striking Soviet-era building is a bulky stone construction fronted by an impressive series of layered stone arches and topped by a series of mini obelisks.
Sightseeing:
• Ateshgah (Suraxani Fire Temple) - "Fire Temple of Baku" is a castle-like religious temple based on Persian and Indian inscriptions, the Zoroastrian place of worship. Although the site was originally a place of worship for Zoroastrians, the fortified complex you see today was built by 18th-century Indian Shiva devotees.
• Yanardagh: Burning Mountain is considered as “eternal fire” and fulfills the trip with unique and interesting experience. In the 13th century Marco Polo mentioned numerous natural-gas flames spurting spontaneously from the Absheron Peninsula. The only one burning today is Yanardagh
• Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre - Vast and jaw-droopingly original, this Zaha Hadid building is a majestic statement of fluid 21st-century architecture forming abstract waves and peaks that seem to melt together.
Sightseeing:
Gobustan - The most popular day trip from Baku takes visitors to the petroglyph reserve above Gobustan, 60km south of the capital, and on to the isolated mud volcanoes above Alat. En route you’ll pass Bibi-Heybat Mosque. The UNESCO-listed Gobustan Petroglyph Reserve protects thousands of stick-figure stone engravings dating back up to 12,000 years. Themes include livestock, wild animals and shaman. They were carved into what were probably caves.
Sightseeing:
Naftalan - The Miracle Oil/Azerbaijan's Therapeutic Oil
Naftalan is a rare type of oil from Azerbaijan that is used only for medicinal purposes. Azerbaijani doctors have prescribed it for years to successfully treat various skin, joint and bone diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and rheumatism. The town of Naftalan, where the oil originates, has a special treatment center that was well known throughout the entire Soviet Union.
Naftalan is extracted from only one place in Azerbaijan - in the north - central part of the country, not far from Ganja. The town in question takes its name from the oil, "Naftalan", which comes from the Azeri for "neft alan" (oil buyer).
In its raw form, Naftalan oil is used for therapeutic baths, known as balneotreatment.
For burn patients, Naftalan is not used in the initial, acute period, but it is used later on to help speed up the regeneration process and prevent the formation of scars.
In modern times, Naftalan has been exploited since the 1870s. The first person to carry out research about the medical properties of Naftalan was a German chemist and engineer named Yeguer. With permission of the Russian czarist government, he developed an ointment from Naftalan in 1892 and sold it in markets as an effective medicine. In 1912, Kuel from Germany founded a joint-stock company called, "Naftalan" and set up companies in Magdeburg and Dresden which prepared ointments, pastes, liniments and creams from Naftalan and exported them to various countries including Russia.
During the Russo-Japanese war (1904 -05), Japanese and German soldiers carried jars with Naftalan ointment to heal their wounds. During World War II, Naftalan preparations were sent to numerous hospitals.
Sightseeing:
- Mingachevir museum
- Kur rowing center
- Friendship park
Mingachevir (Azerbaijani: Mingəçevir, Мингечаур), is the fourth-largest city in Azerbaijan with a population of about 110,000. It is known as city of lights because of its hydroelectric power station on the Kur River, which splits the city in half.
The area has been settled for thousands of years, but the current city was founded in 1948, partly by German soldiers who were taken prisoner during World War II.
Sightseeing:
- Tour of the city of Ganja
- Sightseeing tour in Ganja: visit the mausoleum medieval Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi
- A walking tour of Shah Abbas mosque, mausoleum of Khan Gandja- Jawad Khan
- "Chokek hamam" (Accumulated bath)
- Caravanserai
- Park "Khan Bagi"
- House made of bottles
- Imamzadeh complex (mosque)
Sightseeing:
Goygol and surrounding forests are famous for their abundance and charm in the world. Goygol always attracted attention for its fascinating nature and beauty, so in 1910-1912 the idea of the establishment of a reserve in the area was put on a point. As the first reserve in Azerbaijan - Goygol State Nature Reserve was established in 1925.
National Park is called by the name of Goygol Lake. And the reason for that is its transparent water which reflects surrounding green forests and blue sky as a mirror.
The principal aim of the establishment of Goygol National Park is protection endemic and endangered flora and fauna species, regulation of the stability of natural complexes, creation of more favourable condition in order to carry out scientific-research works, environmental monitoring, ecological awareness of population and development of ecotourism in the tourist potentially areas.
Sightseeing:
Few tourists are likely to hear of Dashkesan (lit. “Stone Cutter”) but it wasn’t so long ago that this was the largest mining region in the Caucasus, rich in mineral resources such as iron ore, cobalt, white marble, limestone, quartz, bentonite clay and alunites, which led to the region’s nickname as “the Urals of Azerbaijan.” The region’s iron ore deposit was used for centuries, while cobalt attracted the attention of prospectors in the 19th century (who included the Siemens brothers) and iron was smelted to produce weapons and farming tools up until the Russian Revolution in 1917.
In the early 20th century the area was heavily prospected, but the two world wars prevented any production on an industrial scale. This finally began in 1954, when the Azerbaijan Mining and Refining Facility was built, and went on to serve the aluminium factories in Ganja and Sumgayit and the Rustavi metal works in Georgia. A 1991 booklet stated that the region extracted 2,150,000 tonnes of iron ore each year.
During those years a railway was used to transport the ore from the mines and then on to the metal works in nearby Rustavi, until this was closed after the fall of the USSR. Small quantities were then sent to Turkey and other countries but it seems that this was the point when Dashkesan went into decline.
A railway bridge built by German POWs near the town of Bayan
The infrastructure to support this - the railway, factories and the town of Dashkesan sitting atop a mountain peak - were built by German POWs in the immediate post-war years. When the Germans began to leave in the late 1940s, Soviet prisoners were drafted in. Many of them mastered specific labour skills and decided to stay having later been granted amnesty. According to one former resident, the town began to grow in the 1960s as young people migrated from surrounding villages as well as graduate specialists, mainly from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute, Azerbaijan State University and Moscow State Mining University. In such a way Dashkesan acquired a uniquely mixed population geared towards exploiting the region’s rich geology.
Hotel: 5* Rich Hotel Baku (or better alternative), 5* Chinar Hotel & Spa Naftalan (or better alternative)
Note:
- We recommend to book as earlier as possible before high season. Please also note that prices may vary during events like Formula 1, Novruz Holiday, Europe League final or similar high-level events.
- Lunch and dinner is included only in Naftalan for 7 days.