We have spent three nights based in Quba in an apartment at The Gold Hotel. This has given us plenty of time to have a good look around and to drive up to the mountain villages. It’s a very clean and tidy town, the streets are wide and there has not been much traffic once you leave the main road.

We spent a few hours wandering around the Red Village across the river. This is a settlement of Mountain Jews and some of the buildings are very old. Some are being restored with help from donations abroad. It was so quiet on the afternoon we were there, hardly a person, car or dog in sight!

Jo and I also went to the history museum in the park, it had lots of beautiful carpets and highlighted the contributions of women to the community. We also found a carpet weaving workshop, where three women were working on their looms. It can take ten months to make a carpet, and some of them have up to five people working on the same one. I showed them my very simple loom and some of my other items and we shared a craft bond, that I find worldwide. It was wonderful.