The city of Baku has many amenities for a broad diversity of cultural experiences

The city of Baku has many amenities for a broad diversity of cultural experiences, from its history to music. It also possesses a wide collection of museums that are dedicated to modern art, religion, and history. Several of Baku’s cultural attractions were commemorated when the city was chosen as the Islamic Culture Capital in 2009. Baku City was also selected to host the Eurovision Dance Contest 2010.

Baku city is home to an assortment of places including Shirvanshah Palace, Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, and Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall. The city is home to several art galleries and museums as well, the most well-known being the Nizami Museum of Azerbaijan Literature, Azerbaijan State Museum of Art, and Carpet and Applied Arts Museum, which displays carpets from all styles, periods and from both the Azeri provinces in Iran and the Azerbaijan proper. Baku’s main film theatre is the Azerbaijan Cinema.

The city has the reputation for providing an energetic nightlife, and a lot of nightclubs that are open till dawn are situated all over Baku. The majority of the bars and pubs are situated close to Fountain Square and are regularly open till the morning’s early hours. There are numerous Irish, Scottish, and British style pubs such as Phoenix Bar, O’Malley’s, Rig Bar, Finnigans, Shakespeares, Corner Bar, and The Clansman. A few of the most famous night clubs and discotheques are Le Mirage, Zagulba Disco Club, Le Chevalier, and X-Site.

More about the modern city of Baku

Evidence of early settlements dating back to the Stone Age has been found in the Absheron Peninsula, including stone carvings from around 12,000 BC. As the settlement grew, Baku became a key staging post on the Silk Road, due to its ideal location at the crossroads between China, India, the Middle East and Europe. This strategic position, along with its political stability and pleasant climate, has made the city a safe haven for travellers and a busy trading centre since the first century AD.Modern Baku occupies a rectangular area of around 2.2 thousand square kilometres, with much of the road network following a grid structure. Since independence in 1991, the cityscape of Baku has changed significantly, as office towers, ultra-modern apartment blocks, hotels and banks have emerged to meet the demands of the capital’s growing and well-educated population. Commuters and tourists alike benefit from recent large-scale investments in the suburban rail network and the city’s road infrastructure. Two new international railways were completed in 2014 - the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line, connecting Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and the Baku-China line. 
These are among 13 transport projects  will be ready in time for the European Games which also include upgrades to the metro and bus networks. In addition, a new international airport terminal has been completed in readiness for the Games, which will have major tourism, trade and other economic benefits. Not only is the entire aviation infrastructure being improved, flight schedules are being enhanced and by 2015 there will be flights to 60 airports across 50 cities in 22 countries Bakuvians are known for their warmth, vision, enthusiasm and values, qualities that will be reflected in the for the Games to come.

Images of The Walled City (Old Town of Baku) 

More about The Walled City (Old Town of Baku)

The 12th-century Maiden Tower (Giz Galasy) is built over earlier structures dating from the 7th to 6th centuries BC, and the 15th-century Shirvanshahs' Palace is one of the pearls of Azerbaijan's architecture.

The Inner Walled City is one of the few surviving medieval towns in Azerbaijan. It retains the characteristic features of a medieval town, such as the labyrinth of narrow streets, congested buildings and tiny courtyards. The walls of the old town, which still survive on the western and northern sides, were built by Menutsshochr Shah in the 12th century and were repaired in the 19th century. The narrow streets are lined with houses dating from the late 18th century onwards, but also contain earlier monuments, mostly concentrated in the lower, seaward side of the town.