Tuesday 18th June This morning we took a closer look at Baku, starting in the Memorial Park overlooking the town & the sea. It reminded us of King's Park in Perth except that it had far more memorials from various conflicts. The most recent of these was the war with Armenia from 1992-1994 in which Ramin had served during his national service year. This one has not been fully resolved & the border between them remains closed & access to an isolat...

Saturday 15th June After a fairly ordinary buffet breakfast we asked for a local map only to be told they didn't have one. To our surprise the hotel doesn't have any brochures for tourists & all we could get was a staff member pointing out to us how to get to the old walled town. We walked across to the old town, had a coffee & then explored the lanes & byways of the place before retreating to the hotel for a rest. In the afternoon we received a...