Activity-packed day in Sheki

We had a leisurely start at 10 a.m. and took a stroll into town to visit the market. Brad and I enjoy visiting markets around the world. As much they’re the same, they’re also different. What stood out at this market was the volume of pickled vegetables that were for sale that were obviously made at home and in reused jars.

We then walked back to our hotel, where our leader had prearranged cars to take us to Kish Village. The centrepiece of Kish Village is the church there. There’s some debate as to whether the church was established in the first century AD or the 12th. Nonetheless, it is quite unique. The church has not been operating with services since the early 2000s and is now a museum.

From there, we walked to another area of the village to bake Azerbaijani bread, which we’d have as part of our lunch. The dough had already been prepared, but we were instructed how to shape and prepare the dough and then how to stick it to the wall of the tandoori oven.

We had lunch there as well and sampled the signature Azerbaijani dish called piti, made with lamb and chickpeas. There’s a process to getting it ready to eat. It was brought to us in cups. We then drained the broth into a bowl and added croutons to the broth. Next, we mashed up the lamb and chickpeas in the cup. Once mashed, it was returned to the broth and topped with a sprinkling of sumac. It was a hardy and unusual dish and I’m glad we tried it.

Next stop, we enjoyed an Azerbaijani wine tasting. We sampled everything from Chardonnay to pomegranate wine. (They don’t export to Canada, mostly China and Japan.)

That ended our group activities for the day and we were now free to roam on our own. Brad and I decided we’d walk over to the Khan winter palace, the smaller sister palace to the one we went to yesterday. Unlike that one, here we were allowed to take photos but the photos don’t do it justice.

When we returned from visiting the palace, we noticed the underground for the hotel was open and saw the laundry that we had turned in that morning, hanging on clothes lines there. We went to the front desk and inquired when it might be delivered to us. The answer was, at checkout tomorrow morning. We explained that wouldn’t work since we needed to pack the items tonight. The woman looked quite perplexed, but responded that we would have them by 11 or midnight. 😲 I guess they don’t use dryers! Fortunately, I’m a night owl and that late delivery won’t be an issue.Read more