Icherisheher, or the Inner City, is Baku’s walled old town: a compact maze of limestone lanes, mosques, caravanserais and courtyards overlooking the Caspian Sea. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000, it preserves traces of the cultures and dynasties that shaped Azerbaijan, while remaining a lived-in neighbourhood rather than an open-air museum.
Its best-known landmark is the Maiden Tower, a cylindrical stone structure whose age and original purpose are still debated. A short walk uphill, the 15th-century Palace of the Shirvanshahs brings together royal buildings, a mosque, a mausoleum and the remains of a bathhouse. Both are worth exploring slowly, but leave time for the smaller streets too, where carved balconies, carpet shops and quiet tea houses offer a glimpse of everyday life inside the walls.
Visit early in the morning for cooler, quieter wandering, and wear flat shoes for the uneven stone streets. Entry to Icherisheher itself is free, though the Maiden Tower and palace charge admission. Icherisheher metro station is just outside the old city walls.