A short 30-minute marshrutka (minibus) ride to the west of Baku lies the open-air museum of Qobustan, home to 12,000-year-old petroglyphs. It’s one of Azerbaijan’s easiest must-sees to get to and provides a wonderful insight to Azerbaijan’s ancient history.

Minibuses leave from just west of Neftciler Meydani, and anybody will be able to point you in the right direction. The minibus driver was perfectly willing to help me out and tell me exactly where to get off. From where the minibus drops you off to the actual site is about 5km. You could walk it if you want, but it involves a fair uphill trek and the heat might be a bit much. Instead, it’s easier to pick up a taxi that will take you to the site, wait for an hour, and then return for about $10.

When I arrived at the museum, I managed to show up the same time as a small group of Azeri high schoolers. They were sitting around waiting for their tour to start, so I asked one where I bought the tickets. One of them giggled at my very Istanbul Turkish and repeated my words back to me in a mocking tone--teenagers, the bane of travelers everywhere. They started asking me all sorts of questions and then came to the odd decision that I was French and kept trying to talk to me in French, which I insisted I didn’t speak. One of the lads then looked at his buddy and said in French, "He is very shy." To which I responded in French, "I’m not shy. I just don’t feel like talking." After that they left me alone.

Eventually I located a ticket office and bought a ticket. Guides in English were available, but I passed. I had decided that I had had enough of Azeris and just wanted to wander by myself. Plus, the museum has a trail marked out for you, and the petroglyphs themselves are fairly self-explanatory. They feature various hunters and animals, the things you would expect from petroglyphs, but all of them were surprisingly well preserved and rather striking. The walk around the whole site took about a half an hour, after which I returned to my cabbie and asked him about the supposed Roman graffiti around. It seems that just down the road from the museum lies a rock, on which one weary Roman soldier, almost 2,000 years ago, decided to take his blade and carve his name into the rock to make his mark, a little "Claudius was here." The carving is the most Eastern evidence of Roman travels. It's rather impressive when you think about it. At that exact spot, some tired Roman soldier, probably wondering what in Hades he was doing way out in this the barren Azeri countryside, decided to carve his name, probably without any idea that 2 millennium later travelers would be taking pictures of it. Sadly, my camera died, so I have none.