Contest - If you get a chance to journey with SC01, which journey would you choose?

We will go to an incredible city, unappreciated in its beauty, unknown to most, the capital of Azerbaijan, BAKU. The journey begins in Dubai, as we will take a 3 hours flight from Dubai’s airport DXB to Baku’s airport Heydar Aliyev. Is a direct flight and SC01 is going to love it.

I chose Emirates Airlines because is one of the best in the world. We will be sitting in economy plus, the flight attendants will be serving us delicious food and complimentary drinks, and to make the experience better we will be watching the latest movie release.

From the plane, we can see the coast of Baku getting closer. The sky is blue with just a few white clouds. After congratulating the captain on our way out of the pane for a perfect landing, we headed to immigration. The lines are short and the airport is not too crowded. We hop on a taxi, leave the luggage at the hotel and immediately start the tour around the city. There is no time to waste.

SC01 has the best tour guide in town, me! I have been here before and already know the places we should visit and the ones we should avoid. I am certain SC01 is going to love Baku. The locals are very polite, they answer all kinds of questions if you have any. Is a safe city to visit, we will commute by taxi but will be doing a lot of walking, as I think is the best way to get to know a place.

The weather is perfect, with no chance of rain which allows us to walk long distances and take as many pictures as we want in no rush. The streets of Baku are gorgeous, all very clean with a unique mixture of the old and new architecture. Bronze statues decorate the city in a playful way. We seat for a while and after a couple of breaths continue with our journey.

Some of the walls of houses are so interesting, we fell in love with a particular one. It had a lion painted on the stone wall and the eyes were made out of yellow glass. The more we looked at the wall the more fascinating things we found. The roots of the trees had faces and the AC unit was a piece of art. Do you see the red shoes on top of the window?

At lunchtime, we bought some sandwiches and stop by the most lovely fountain. The sound of the water was very relaxing. Along with the sandwiches we had one of Baku’s most iconic beverages, orange and pomegranate juice, they sell them almost on every corner. Is the perfect mixture and is so refreshing. We spent a little time after lunch contemplating the fountain and then we continued.

To make this journey memorable we visited the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum. This museum was established in 1967 and had have many names. The main purpose of the museum is to display Azerbaijan’s national heritage, which is carpet weaving art. In 2010, this type of art was included in the UNESCO list of Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Definitely a proud moment for the country.

As the day was ending we still have some time. We decided to wander outside the city and go visit Yanar Dag. On a hillside of the Caspian Sea near Baku, there is an eternal fire. This natural gas fire has been burning, nonstop, for over 70 years. The legend says that the fire was accidentally ignited by a shepherd in 1950 and had never been extinguished.