My hotel, the AzCot is a real find, an oil magnate's mansion from the late 1800s, very central, just off the main piazza, Fountain Square. The rooms are comfortable and smart and the public rooms have been furnished with real care. This is not normal consulttants' territory.
To cap it all they do an English Breakfast and it's the real deal! OK, maybe the sausages wouldn't be seen in my local butcher's but on the other hand the tomatoes were to die for, and the eggs, beans and bacon were OK as well!
So, suitably fortified, I took time off on Sunday morning to explore this city for the first time in five years. And what changes there have been! In my memory, Baku was quite a dowdy, sprawling city, but there has been a building boom since I was last here which must be as active as any except for the behemoths like Dubai or Shanghai. The impressive thing is that everywhere the buildings – old and new- have been faced with limestone, the glorious mellow stone that I associate with the Cotswolds.
And everywhere new parks have been built and each one with its own fountains, so walking in this city is a real pleasure especially early on a weekend when the opportunity to be mown down by a car is marginally reduced.
But the real joy is the old city, a UNESCO site. So much money has been spent restoring it, and everywhere there seem to be smart small hotels and, of course, an utterly refreshing lack of traffic.
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