Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan
Today I find myself in Azerbaijan’s autonomous exclave nestled between Iran, Turkiye, and Armenia.
Why Nakhichevan:
I must admit, my original reason for visiting Nakhichevan was not because of some fascination with the place. Instead, it’s a territory on the Traveler’s Century Club list, so I need to visit it on my quest to go to all those locations. But boy, am I glad I went because of the scenery and the Alinja Fortress.
How to Get There:
Because southern Armenia splits Nakhichevan off from the rest of Azerbaijan, and those two countries are not on the best of terms (to put it mildly), the only way to get to Nakhichevan is either by flying from Baku or driving through Iran. Because the Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) website was not working, we went to a ticket office in Baku to book our ticket to Nakhichevan.
The flights run about 10 times a day and are just about an hour long. It’s a very comfortable flight– no complaints.
Where to Stay:
As far as we can tell, there are three major hotels in Nakhichevan city: Tebriz Hotel, Grand Nakhichevan Hotel, and Saat Meydani Hotel. Initially, we planned to stay at the Tebriz hotel since it was downtown, but it was sold out for our dates. Instead, we chose the Saat Meydani hotel, the city's newest hotel.
The Saat Meydani is a square surrounded by a building. There are shops and restaurants on the ground floor, and on the second floor, there’s a hotel.
The rooms are lovely, with the tallest ceilings I have ever seen at a hotel; they must have been 15 feet.
What to do:
We arranged a tour via Baku City Tours, as they also have a tour guide based in Nakhichevan. At 10am, our guide Turgay picked us up and took us to the Alinja Fortress. Perched in the mountains, we were told it took the great conquerer Amir Timur 14 years to capture this structure. Nowadays, it takes a bit less than 14 years to get up there, but it’s still no small feat considering you have to walk up 2,000 stairs. However, it was certainly worth heaving ourselves up the stairs because we were afforded some great views.
Then, we headed to the Khanegah Tomb and the Ashabi Kahf caves, where many believers of Islam sought refuge during times of persecution.
Afterwards, we went to the salt caves, a long hallway with some rooms carved into a salt-filled mountain. Here, people with respiratory issues can come and heal their lungs.
Finally, we did a little tour around the city to see the Momine Khatun Mausoleum and Noah’s Mausoleum.
After all the walking, we headed back to the hotel for some hot showers and then headed to dinner. We picked a Turkish restaurant in Saat Meydani square, which was not great. But we were ravaging, so I honestly can’t complain.
This was definitely an unorthodox birthday, but it’s one I won’t soon forget because it brought me to a new TCC country, and I got to spend it with my mother.
Azerbaijan is UN Country 64/193, and Nakhichevan is TCC Region 81/330 for me.