Ganja

Ganja is the second city and a much older one than Baku, associated above all with Nizami Ganjavi, the twelfth-century poet whose mausoleum stands on the road out of town in a modern rebuilding. The centre keeps a seventeenth-century core around the Juma mosque, with two brick caravanserais facing each other and a restored bathhouse nearby. On a quiet residential street is the Bottle House, a private house faced entirely in glass bottles, built in the 1960s as a memorial by its owner and now the city's oddest landmark.

What you actually see

• The Juma Mosque - a seventeenth-century brick mosque by Sheikh Bahaeddin, with twin minarets.
• The caravanserais - two brick caravanserais facing each other, restored and in use.
• The Bottle House - a private house faced in tens of thousands of glass bottles.
• Nizami's mausoleum - a tall stone tomb on the Baku road, rebuilt in the 1990s.

When to go

April to June and September to October are the comfortable seasons. Summer on this plain is hot and dusty. The city is a natural base for Goygol and the mountain roads south of it.

Honest expectations

Much of the historic fabric was lost and what stands has been heavily restored, so this is not an old city to look at. The Bottle House is a private property viewed from the street. Distances between sights are long and the centre is not compact.

Nearby

Lake Goygol is forty minutes south, and Naftalan is west along the plain.