Where to stay in Azerbaijan

Baku

• Icherisheher, the walled old city, is the atmospheric place to stay - small hotels inside the walls, and the Maiden Tower and Shirvanshahs' Palace on the doorstep.
• Around Fountains Square and the Boulevard is the modern centre, well connected and full of restaurants.
• The Flame Towers overlook everything and the hotels up there have the view and a hill to climb.
• Baku is genuinely handsome - the oil-boom architecture of the early 1900s makes the centre look like a Caspian Paris.

Elsewhere

• Sheki - the old silk-road town in the northern foothills, with the Khan's Palace and a caravanserai you can sleep in.
• Quba and Lahic - mountain villages, cooler, and the start of the good walking.
• Lankaran in the south, subtropical and green, near the Iranian border.
• Gabala - the ski and resort town, busy with domestic tourism.

Where not to book

• Twelve districts in the south-west carry an advisory against all but essential travel because of mines and unexploded ordnance: Kelbajar, Lachin, Qubadli, Zengilan, Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Khojavand, Shusha, Khojali, Khankendi, Aghdam and Tartar.
• Some of these have been marketed for tourism since the conflict ended. The clearance is not finished and the FCDO advice stands.
• Within 5 km of the Armenian border, all travel is advised against.

Register if you stay

• Over 15 days means registering with the State Migration Service. Hotels do it; apartment hosts often do not. The fine comes on departure.