Our Armenian trip is coming to an end. Unfortunately, since we really like it here and still haven’t seen everything we wanted. It’s not that bad though, since we’re going to spent 4 more days in our beloved Georgia where we plan to hang out in the wine region of Kachetia and maybe take a trip to Kazbegi, where we didn’t manage to get last year. And I have to admin – we miss khachapuri a bit. In Georgia you can buy it everywhere and it makes a great road snack.
Armenia.. we finished our little “road trip”. We’ve seen the surroundings of Yerevan with Khor Virap and Garni monasteries complex from the 1st century, we took a trip to the beautiful Lake Sevan located 2000 metres above sea level, we also drove North. Most of the places we’ve seen are absolute must sees on every Caucasian trip. Armenia has amazing landscapes in store, it’s very green, full of mysterious monasteries that you don’t get bored with even after visiting 5, 6 or more. Driving around Armenia may be challenging thanks to the state of the roads (I can’t even imagine how shaky it must be in a marshrutka). There’s so many holes in the roads that some drivers try to avoid them by switching from one lane to another all the time. Contrary to popular belief, the drivers aren’t crazier than in Poland and other countries, and the police is not as bribe-greedy as they say. But there’s still quite a lot of police cars around, especially on the way out of Yerevan. The good thing is that the police always drives white cars with lights on top – easy to spot so you can slow down if you need to. Armenia is not a perfect place for the ones with motion sickness (like me) – serpentine roads, curvy roads and holes make the car and my stomach jump all the time. Don’t even bother driving without Cola or some medicine!
way back from Alaverdi and Sanahin monastery
After getting to know with the roads and with Yerevan surroundings, we decided to take a longer trip to Sanahin and Hagpat monasteries in the North of the country. Approx. 200 km from Yerevan! That’s quite a distance and half of it goes through curvy roads in the mountains… Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to stay in this region? Maybe we should have booked accommodation in a different part of the country? W could, but we didn’t do it for several reasons:
a) our apartment in Yerevan was a nice place to stay – pleasant, close to the city centre and pretty cheap as for a 83 sqm flat with a kitchen, bathroom, Internet connection and two bedrooms
b) at night, Yerevan is a very lively city and coming back for a walk and a dinner is pure pleasure – PS. the streets are still crowded at 11 pm! There’s lots of people walking with children in different ages (from infants to few-year olds). Finally I stopped feeling like a bad mother whose child is awake at that time and not in his beloved little bed!
c) we were worried about the accommodation and restaurants in other regions of Armenia – we were right, it’s hard to find a restaurant or even an eatery there. On our way North, we saw one nice looking hotel in a very picturesque location – Tufenkian Avan Dzoraget Hotel.
d) we (I) wasn’t feeling like going from one place to another and packing up 😛 – we still had to get back to Yerevan for the night train to Tbilisi.
Therefore we decided to make Yerevan our base and we went along! 🙂
on our way to monasteries in the Northern Armenia
we wanted to keep stopping on our way and take photos, photos and some more photos!
Our GPS wasn’t cooperating. We wanted to set Odzun or Alaverdi as our destination in a first place since it was just a few steps from Hagpat and Sanahin monasteries. But GPS decided for us that we will go to Vanadzor first and see what then! The road from Yerevan to Northern Armenia turned out to be very picturesque, magical and virginal. It was an amazing drive with infinite green fields spreading on both sides of the road with occasional cows and little houses here and there. So beautiful! An amazing place. And the road wasn’t curvy at all (but it still had lots of holes in it). You could drive quite fast and still feel good. Maks was asleep and it felt almost idyllic!
going to Vanadzor
After a while, the idyllic road turned into a curvy one and we had to face up to 100 km of amazing views and tiring turns that lead us to Sanahin and Hagpat. The cities we passed by on our way (like Vanadzor) do not look inviting at all. The surrounding areas may look beautiful but the cities are poor and neglected. It was hard to believe after we saw Yerevan with Armani shops and trendy citizens on the streets.
Despite Łukasz’ belief that “there can’t be any police here!”, it’s in the mountains where we have to pull over! Documents, “English please” and “Turisti turisti” they can go! 🙂 As you can see, it’s not as scary as they say!
Alaverdi was our another checkpoint after Odzun – supposedly it’s just a few steps from the monasteries. We drove around looking for it for a while, but after asking the locals in Polish-Russian dialect we managed to communicate and someone lead us to the bridge where we finally found signs pointing to Sanahin and Hagpat monasteries. I thought that we were almost there but unfortunately there were more curvy roads ahead of us. That certainly wasn’t the best place for me and my motion sickness. We got really surprised when we saw little cities with tall blocks in the middle of nowhere! Looks quite surrealistic and spoils the views.
such a beautiful valley with such ugly blocks
It was in one of such “cities” where we found signs pointing to Sanahin monastery… No tourists at that time, but I guess that some come here (a few a day) as there were stands selling souvenirs in front of the monastery – I even managed to find a sphere for my collection (did I tell you that I started collecting spheres from every place we visit? :)). We spoke with the merchants for a while, they admired Maks for a while and then, we finally saw it – Sanahin monastery that, along with Hagpat complex, is one of the best pieces of Armenian medieval architecture. Precise dates of the erection of the monasteries are not known, but it is believed they were constructed in the middle of the 10th century.
Sanahin is hidden in the bushes, simple, mysterious with a cemetery nearby. Cemeteries in Armenia seem quite unusual for us – almost every tombstone has a painting of the deceased on it. The empty monastery and empty cemetery look even more mysterious.
Maks also likes the monastery – and all the others too. That’s thanks to the mysterious atmosphere. Add a story about a dragon and he visit suddenly becomes calm and easy!
Sanahin – a monasteries complex from 10th century
it’s so great to see it without tourists, without anybody around
on a nearby cemetary
a mystery..
We left Sanahin and drove back to Yerevan. “Back” meaning with an additional trip planned on our way back. We gave up on Hagpat since we got sick of the curvy roads. We wanted to see Goshavank and Haghartsin monasteries near Dilijan before the sunset.
We also wanted to eat something but it turned out to be quite difficult in the North. We passed Odzun and Alaverdi and found nothing. In the end our lunch consisted of sandwiches, sulguni cheese, salami and Armenian version of khachapuri sometimes called burek. Unfortunately it was made from French pastry and could not stand to the Georgian one 🙂 And the sandwiches? Made in the shop… by us. “Can we get a knife and a few slices of cheese and salami for the bread roll? … “A few more slices please!” (Maks ate the salami). Three generations of shop owners laughed when we tried to make the sandwiches while Maks was devouring the salami. I guess that they rarely get such customers 🙂
We got rewarded for the hunger and other difficulties with magnificent views on the way to Dilijan. We’ll teake you to Goshavank and Haghartsin monasteries soon. You’ll also see the magnificent Lake Sevan located nearby (and another monastery, of course :)).
seems like time has stopped here centuries ago…
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