Xan Lənkəran

Top choice in Azerbaijan


Oh, for more hotels like this. If you don’t mind staying out by the bus station, this handicraft-filled complex combines an air of well-contrived antiquity with all modern conveniences, including Grohe bathroom fittings, fluffy dressing gowns and underfloor heating. There's a village-style dining room, a Tolkienesque garden and a reception desk fashioned from two vast tree trunks.

Some walls are made of traditional mud-wattle, and in one sitting area you can lounge like a khan on piles of carpets and mutəkə (elbow cushions). Shelves are hewn from logs and 'hung' from chains, lamps are designed like 19th-century lanterns and even the cleaners wear traditional village costumes. The restaurant offers excellent-value meals.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Azerbaijan attractions

1. Fisherman's Beach

1.75 MILES

Lənkəran's grey-sand beaches aren't a big attraction if you want to swim and many are dotted with debris. Nonetheless, the coastal area around 1km north…

2. Həzi Aslanov Statue

2.14 MILES

The figure standing proudly in front of the train station is local WWII hero Həzi Aslanov, whose plinth rises from a stylised concrete tank.

3. Bazaar

2.17 MILES

Lənkəran’s sprawling bazaar area is centred on an architecturally drab concrete hangar, but it’s loaded with colourful produce and equally colourful local…

4. Imam Ali Məscidi

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Dating from 1876, this tile-roofed brick mosque is archetypal of the region with its coloured-glass windows set within large pointed arches. Its pair of…

5. Heydar Əliyev Mərkəzi

2.3 MILES

Pop into this refreshingly air-conditioned centre to peruse the photographic exhibition on the life and times of the 'National Leader'. Or simply to cool…

6. History Museum

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The distinctive if heavily restored mansion containing this museum was built in 1913 for the grandson of Talysh khan Mir Mustafa. It features some grave…

7. Stalin's Prison

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This sturdy brick-barrel tower once imprisoned Joseph Stalin during his early revolutionary days. However, there's no attempt to commemorate the fact and…

8. Yanar Bulağ

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Watch water burn at Arçivan village! What you see is a little drinking fountain beneath a concrete pergola, but the water that bubbles forth is made …