Why Armenia? We think this country is not very well known certainly there isn´t tourism yet.

That was one of the reason we decided it to go check it out. Armenia is somewhere between Asia and Europe. The official language is Armenian, one of the oldest languages in the world and the second language is of course Russian. The oldest christian country was surprising us a lot, especially because of the incredible landscape and the people and the food everywhere was awesome!!!!

Yerevan

Yerevan the capital of Armenia belongs to one of the oldest cities in the whole world, but honestly that is hard to believe. Outside of the city are a couple of constructions which are not finished yet since years. But the centre is really nice with a lot of amazing buildings. The city has a lot of great and very magnificent old buildings, still from the former Soviet time. Like the beautiful opera or the amazing Republic Square, during the summer you can enjoy every day from 8 p.m. – 11 p.m. a lot of water fountains in the combination with a great light show!!!!! It is really a spectacular event and worth it to go there in the evening, for example first you hear the sound of Beethoven and then Mozart!!

Republic Square

Opera Square

Tashir Street, the underground shopping mall

The holy Mesrop Maschotz was the inventor of the Armenian letters

Strange and funny skulptures

Especially Yerevan has a lot of great cafés and restaurants. The quality of the food is incredible good everywhere you go!!!! It was always a pretty hard decision to choose where to go!!!! The menus in all restaurants had such a huge choice of food and drinks. The city has no real Starbucks, but a pretty awesome mobile small coffee shop which is selling Starbucks products and we think you can get the most delicious Frappuccino’s and Smoothies … so great!

Juice & Co. – A mobile Starbucks retailer

Zsitsernakaberd Memorial and the eternal flame

A memorial for the genocide of the Armenian population in the year 1915.

Every year on the 24^th of April is the memorial day taking part, approximately 2 million Armenian pilgrims are going to the memorial place and remember to the 1,5 million victims.

One year ago Kim Kardashian was visiting the country and of course she was making the country a little bit more famous. Her ancestors were from Armenia!! She and her sister Khloe Kardashian were laying down flowers there to remember these days.

Zsitsernakaberd Memorial

The market

Journey through Armenia

We saw many travel reports with a lot of pictures from the typical christian churches in Armenia and of course we were looking forward to see them all. We started with a monastery complex which is impressively build in a rock outside of Yerevan. The beautiful church was discovered in the 13 th century. Nowadays there are a couple of buildings they were used for monks and even as an economical complex. Inside of the monastery we could admire the holy water, which is coming out of a spring. A lot of religious people were drinking the water and using it to clean their body. We were using it only for cooling, because it was soo hot. The most incredible experience is definitely the view of the areas. For example, the humongous cross built into the hill site right next to the old church.

Geghardt Monastery

Geghardt Monastery

Garni Temple

The Garni temple is the most visited place in Armenia. The temple is located close to a deep canyon and of course it was on our agenda as well, to visit the temple!!!

The surrounding area and there views are amazing!!

The sun temple seems a little bit unattractive and small, but on the other hand it has amazing energy. At the entrance local women offering delicious food, like walnuts or sweet bread dipped in honey.

In front of the temple we saw a little bath house, which was closed, Vrezh told us because of safety reasons. Probably it was built in the third century after the Roman idol!

Garni Temple

Echmiadzin, also called small Vatican, is the centre of the Armenian church. Inside of this modern complex you can find a library, a print office where they were printing bibles. They also had a candle factory and even a cathedral which was discovered in the 4^th century and they were just restoring it! In front of the entrance we could see the graves, where the spiritual heads of the church were buried.

Library of the small “Vatikancomplex”

Areni Wine Factory

The wine is the oldest and most famous alcoholic beverage in Armenia. The oldest wine cellars are around 6100 years old, we think that’s really incredible .. We were impressed as we saw so many old wine bottles. They were stored in a large warehouse for many decades and getting riper and riper every year. The most famous wine called “Karas”. They were growing this terrific wine in the whole country and you can get Karas as a white, red and rose wine!! They were explaining to us exactly how the wine production works and we were visiting the whole Areni Winery. For sure we tried nearly every single wine!

The taste of all wines were really great and the choice is gigantic!

We also tried different types of Vodka with different fruit flavours like peach, cherry and blueberry. So you will be hammered by the time you leave.

Fortunately, nobody had to drive and so we tried everything. After every glass we got a small piece of goat cheese to neutralize our flavour. After we finished our big wine and whiskey testing, we had great cup of coffee and tea.

We can highly recommend this factory! It is really worth to visit the Areni Winery, again thanks a lot for the nice afternoon!!

Areni Wine Factory

Arena Wine Factory

Noravank Monastery

The Noravank monastery also 13^th century is located at the edge of a canyon of the Amaghu and is one of the most beautiful monasteries of Armenia. The sun is reflecting of the rocks, so that the whole complex appears to be blood red.

Unfortunately, the monastery has been destroyed by an earthquake in the year 1840, but they were rebuilding and restoring it in an incredibly nice way.

Noravank monastery

Khndzoresk

Khndzoresk which is a really a nice cave town where people were living till 1960 in approximately 400 small “cave apartments”. They were arising out of a soft chalkstone. Nowadays they are using the caves as stables. We reached the cave town village over a huge hanging bridge. This area is also cool for hiking. It is incredible that people were living there not so long ago. This experience was definitely in our list of a real adventure.

Cave town

Hanging bridge

Wings of Tatev- the longest cable car in the world

After our trip through cave town were heading to Halidsor, in this city you can find the longest cable car in the world. A gigantic project which was built by a Swiss company and of course it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records! The cable car is connecting Tatev with Halidsort. For the inhabitants of the villages it is free of charge to use the cable car once a day. Visitors have to pay approximately 10 € for a return ticket!! The gondola is passing two valleys and needs 11 minutes. After you leave the village, it is worth to have a cup of coffee in the modern and quite nice Armenian restaurant located next to the cable car.

The longest cable car of the world

Then we reached the other side called Tatev, we walked up the hill. From this hill you have an amazing view and we could take the most incredible pictures. Thank you so much Vrezh! This church got also destroyed by the earthquake, but the government spent a lot of money to restore it. Inside the church it is a bit like a museum. We could admire how complex it is to produce cooking oil and see where the monks were living together with the animals. The whole complex housed in total more than 2000 monks!!!!!!

Tatev monastery – provided by Vrezh

A gorgeous view with the Tatev church in the background …

Team Outfti- Amsterdam to Tokio by bike!!

Incredible we met a couple from the Netherlands and they were on their way from Amsterdam to Tokio by bike ….respect!!!!!!! Here you can follow them and can see exactly where they are now.

Team Oufti from Amsterdam

Vodka breakfast

Of course local burnt Vodka…. Give it a try…!!!

Sevan Lake

Quite close to the Georgian border Armenia has a splendid landscape!!!!

Those who plan to make a trip to Armenia are highly recommended to combine their trip with a visit to Georgia. These two bordering countries of the South Caucasus have many common and unique features. Georgia is a colorful, bright and hospitable country famous for its magnificent landscapes, noisy feasts, fiery dances and poliphonic singing. Combining your trip you will have a chance to feel deeply the Caucasian flavor and get a deeper understanding of the culture, customs and the most ancient Christian traditions of these countries. We guarantee that such a trip will remain in your memory forever, just trust local tour operators to turn your journey into the fairy tale –

Check out the website of AraraTour and book a trip in combination with Georgia

Armenia & Georgia Trip 

Infobox

Hotels:

Yerevan

Doubletree Hotel by Hilton 

Holiday Hostel

Visa:

For Germans visa-free

>Informations at the embassy links<

Currency:

Armenia Dram AMD

The current course you can look up at Oanda

Language:

Armenian

Russian

Local Time:

You can read the local times here

High Season:

The best time for Armenia here

Health:

The vaccination passport should be checked by a doctor and refresher courses such as tetanus, yellow fever and hepatitis A, B, C may be performed.

You can read more about this here.

Safety:

You can find all entry requirements at the listed embassies

Embassy:

For US Embassy: link
For UK Embassy: link
For AUS Embassy: link

Information about the tour guide

Name:

Vrezh Nazaryan

Language:

English

Russia

Contakt:

vrezhnazaryan@gmail.com

Website:

http://www.adventurearmenia.com

“You can also combine it with Georgia”

About Vrezh

Thank you soo much for the great tour Vrezh! You made our trip through Armenia really more than unforgettable! We had a lot of fun with you. We can highly recommend to visit Armenia and travel around with our friend Vrezh! Everything was more than what we hope for. You picked lovely guest houses with amazing people and food!! The combination with Georgia was awesome!!!

Thank you again for the great time!