Lankaran

Lankaran feels like a different country from the rest of Azerbaijan. The climate is subtropical and humid, the roadsides run with citrus, rice paddies and tea terraces, and the Caspian shoreline is wide and quiet outside summer weekends. Inland, Hirkan National Park protects relict Hyrcanian forest — woodland that has survived since before the last ice age and is now UNESCO-listed — with ironwood trees found almost nowhere else. The Talysh Mountains hold thermal springs and Yanar Bulag, a spring whose methane-rich water can be lit with a match. The kitchen is the other reason to come: lavangi, herb-heavy rice dishes and local honey.