Maiden Tower Boutique Hotel

A small hotel that behaves like a large one: reception is staffed around the clock, the airport transfer actually turns up, and someone will carry your bag up the stairs before you can object.

Rooms are plain in the right way — white plaster, dark wood, heavy curtains that block the morning sun completely. The ones on the third and fourth floors face the Maiden Tower directly; ask for one when you book and the hotel will hold it if it is free.

The ground-floor restaurant does a proper Azerbaijani menu rather than a hotel-buffet version of one. The plov is cooked to order and takes forty minutes, which they will tell you when you sit down.