Qax is a pleasant, tranquil provincial town in northwestern Azerbaijan, at the base of an appendix of Azerbaijani territory that juts into Georgia and Dagestan. It sits northwest of Sheki and about 400 km from Baku.
Social life centres on the chaikhana, an interesting building with a metallic dome located near the Baku bus stop on a park with a monument to Mammad Mammadov. The main bus station is in the south of town, near St George's Church, an attractive Georgian-style church that is the only active Georgian Orthodox church in Azerbaijan. Near the village of Tangyt, you can find the tomb of Haji Murat, the Avar resistance fighter made famous by Tolstoy's novella Hadji Murad.
The nearby village of Ilisu, once the capital of an independent sultanate, is worth the short detour. There is only one street, but two castle towers — including the four-storey Sumug fortress — a mosque, and an 18th-century bridge survive, along with a twenty-minute trail down to a beautiful waterfall in the forest below.