5 Top places to visit in Armenia – Armenia travel bucket list

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Day 2 and it was our chance to explore the top places to visit in Armenia through the “Pearls of Armenia” day-trip from Yerevan. We started our day with a cracking breakfast at the Europe hotel in Yerevan.

In my review, I can say that Europe hotel has the most varied, tasty & well balanced spread as far as breakfast’s concerned. The veggies, fruits and cheese are fresh and full of flavor. It made us feel as if what we were consuming back in Dubai was imported plastic.

 

5 TOP PLACES TO VISIT IN ARMENIA

Our schedule for the day was a Pearls of Armenia day-trip exploring the Garni temple, Geghard monastery, Sevan Lake & the town of Tsaghkadzor.

We boarded our coach and unlike the happening first day in Armenia (where we had Anna as our guide), our guide for the day trip was Lucy. First stop in our tour was the pagan Temple of Garni.

 

THE PAGAN TEMPLE OF GARNI

 

The Pagan temple of Garni is located 27 km away from Yerevan city & overlooks the ravine of the Azat river. The site’s situated in Garni village in the Kotayk province, 500 metres above sea-level. As a residence, Garni region was founded 2000 years ago!

 

 

The Garni complex includes a temple, a royal palace, a Roman bath & the church. According to the Greek inscription, the pagan temple of Garni was built in 77 AD.

This development occurred during the reign of king Tiridates I of Armenia. The temple is believed to have been dedicated to the sun god – Mithra.

 

 

The structure is on a raised platform with 9 steps leading to the entrance. There are 24 columns in the temple representing the hours of a day with 6 in the front & the back and 8 on the sides.

 

 

It was supposedly the summer residence of Armenian kings. The temple had unfortunately collapsed in an earthquake in 1679. However, a renowned Armenian architect Alexander Sahinian undertook the reconstruction of the temple in 1969.

All Armenian temples had been destroyed after Armenians adopted Christianity in 301 AD. But the temple of Garni stands as the only non-Christian entity in whole of Armenia in current times. This makes it one of the top places to visit in Armenia.

 

 

We saw quite a lot of greenery throughout the site spotting walnut & apricot trees in particular. Apricot, by the way, is the national fruit of Armenia.

We clicked pictures after a particularly annoying group of people left the place and stopped photobombing every picture we took. Standing by the boundary railing, overlooking the beautiful gorge and the site, we were wondering what the sight of snow peaks during winters would be like, from there.

 

 

Outside the temple we saw a small market selling local produce & souvenirs and also a few hunters selling skins of their kills (wolf, mongoose, fox etc). We left the temple to go to our next stop in the Pearls of Armenia tour – the Geghard monastery.

 

GEGHARD MONASTERY

 

Geghard monastery is situated in the Kotayk province of Armenia. The walk to the monastery is lined with women selling sweet bread, sheets of fruit lavash & souvenirs.

At the entrance, Lucy showed us this small wishing wall with a curved slab of stone at some height. It’s said that if you throw a little stone & it manages to stay on the slab, then your wish comes true. People were trying their luck but the stones just wouldn’t stay on the slab.

However, I threw one and it miraculously stayed at the edge. Not flaunting but just saying that my wish is going to materialise (If it doesn’t, I know who to sue).

Geghard (meaning “spear” in Armenian) is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The spear holds the significance as the one that wounded Christ during his crucifixion.

 

 

The spear was apparently brought to Armenia by Apostle Jude (one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus). Since it was founded at the site of a spring inside a cave, it’s called Ayrivank (Monastery of the Cave). The monastery was founded in the 4th century by Saint Gregory the Illuminator. He’s also credited with the feat of converting Armenia from Paganism to Christianity.

In fact, very few people know that Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as a national religion. The significant contribution of Geghard monastery to Armenia’s religious history is why it’s one of the top places to visit in Armenia.

The monastery complex contains the main church called The Katoghike chapel built in 1215 against the mountain and several other rock-cut churches, tombs, caves, carvings & constructions including the Vestry, first cave chamber Avazan, chamber of Jhamatun, Chapel of S. Grigor.

 

 

There’s an arched entry to most of the caves and engraved crosses on the walls of the cave church. The architectural style is Armenian and the site’s believed to be carved out of the adjacent mountain.

There were intricate carvings on the walls of the cave church. Also, arches of the cave churches had this signature cupola at the top with a hole to allow light to pass through them.

 

 

There was a fountain tap in the courtyard of the complex that apparently ran holy water. I filled a bottle and drank it since I was thirsty thanks to all the walking, much to the surprise of people around me, partly because I sprayed some water(wasn’t my fault, it was just difficult filling water from that upward flowing fountain).

Walking further we spotted a cute little stone bridge over a running stream of water with a wishing tree by the side. It looked picturesque and dreamy with the brown of the bridge merging with the greenery and the colours of the knotted cloth pieces tied to the wishing tree.

 

 

You could see the Geghard monastery from there. After struggling to have the bridge to ourselves, Ava & I were finally alone and got the opportunity to capture the place.

 

 

We made our respective wishes (I had another one left after the successful “stone-throw” wish) and tied the knotted cloth to the tree. Continued walking from there and reached a secret rock cave which had carvings on them & stone sculptures at the bottom.

It looked really fancy and though Ava had the idea to steal one from there, we both decided not to (who’d carry it all the way to the exit? Lazy thieves us!) We spent some time sitting and admiring the monastery complex and then got into our coach to head for lunch by the Sevan lake.

 

SEVAN LAKE

We stopped by this restaurant called Ashot Erkat and the view of the mountains kissing the clouds with the lake at the bottom was mesmerising and looked like a picture postcard. I was more excited to go down to the lake than to have lunch.

The lunch was mediocre with me eating just a boiled vegetable curry and fries and Ava eating a few grilled meat pieces. Finishing our meal, we had some time on our hands and decided to chill by the lake.

 

 

The street leading to the lake was touristy with souvenir stores right to the end, selling – plates, articles, magnets, ornaments & jewellery. We walked on this slightly shaky wooden passage on the lakefront and Ava met some adorable dog buddies of hers so she got busy playing with them while I just stood there enjoying the surreal view.

 

 

Lake Sevan is the largest water body in Armenia. Referred to as the “Sea of Gegham” it’s also one of the largest freshwater alpine lakes in Eurasia making it one of the top places to visit in Armenia. I turned back & could see a flock of birds flying over what looked like a monastery on top of a mountain.

 

 

My guide Lucy informed me later, that it was called the Sevanavank monastery. The view had something captivating about it.

Dark blue calm waters whispering into the ears of the surrounding volcano-shaped mountains. Clouds falling in the arms of their jilted lover mountains asking for attention, seeming so emotionally charged up that they could burst into rain anytime.

 

 

Winds blowing in their own sweet rhythm.  Anybody could easily fall in infatuation with this lake. It was like a beautiful face you couldn’t help but look at.

I think the tour “Pearls of Armenia” had a really captivating candidate in Lake Sevan. No wonder so many souvenir stores had plates and magnets of the same view. After parting from the dogs of Sevan we moved on to the town of Tsaghkadzor (complicated names I swear!)

 

TSAGHKADZOR TOWN

It was drizzling outside and the weather coupled with the announcement from Lucy that we could do a cable-car ride right up to the mountain peak, only fuelled our excitement further. We reached Tsaghkadzor and Ava & I quickly walked up the slope to buy our cable-car tickets. Now I have taken a lot of cable-car rides across many countries but this one was strange.

So there were 2 people standing on either side of the “open air” cable-car, guiding people to sit on it. There were markers hand-written on the ground saying “Stand Here“. Ava & I obliged. After a few seconds, we felt a push from behind from the cable car as we recoiled and sat on the seats in the car and put the metal lock ahead of us.

This was new, weird, maybe unsafe and mad but exciting. Two minutes into the ride and it started hailing. We decided to put our phones to use, clicking pictures &  Ava took this slow-mo video of me in the cable-car with mountain views passing by in the background and hail pellets falling which was my absolute favourite (narcissism? maybe)

 

 

With each level of elevation along the cable rope, the views behind us changed from green mountains to valleys, to the panoramic view of the entire town.

There was an endless stretch of alpine grasslands around us. For a moment, I felt I was in Switzerland and not Armenia. The skies behind us, on the other hand, were painting a furiously violent picture.

 

 

Each level of elevation had this mounted structure that played some really catchy song- the tune of which just got stuck in my head (I found out the track later thanks to this app called Shazam that Ava told me about)

We were about to reach the top & as it turns out, getting down from the cable car was even moraction-packeded. We just raised the metal rod belt and jumped from the cable car to the sides A.k.a Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible, with the exception of the blast in the background.

But a blast of another kind is what we were truly having as it began raining heavily so we ran down the passage in the alpine forest towards this closed shelter along with a couple. There was a tree on the way standing isolated and exclusive with some fancy stars hanging on it.

 

 

See, I believe that weather can be challenging but a true travel-blogger never succumbs to circumstances & misses a photo opportunity. Ava & I put the guy from the couple to work by asking him to click us and click he did after which we enjoyed sitting under the fault in our star(ry) tree & he rushed to his girlfriend for a make out session.

All I craved for at that moment was some good hot chocolate but unfortunately, there wasn’t any cafeteria at the top. The stop-start rain started getting heavier & the tree couldn’t help us from getting drenched. The cable-car service was about to shut in 15 minutes, so we hopped back on the cable-car and made our way down to the starting point.

 

 

We just couldn’t have enough of the view. I remember Ava & I had stopped talking and just observed everything around us.

The cold breeze (with few naughty droplets of rain) that kissed our face, the pleasant alpine forest surrounding us, the view of the mountains, valley and the entire town ahead of us, made Tsaghkadzor one of the most enjoyable Pearls of Armenia!

 

 

It was the silence during the ride that I cherished. What else can anybody do, when all they see around them are scenes resembling desktop wallpapers!

Just the sheer satisfaction you feel thanks to the beauty of the town on display makes Tsaghkadzor one of the top places to visit in Armenia. We got down the raw & adventurous cable-car and walked to a cafe near the ticketing counter.

I don’t know what struck me but I was suddenly in the mood to have a beer (how cravings change).

Cracked open 2 bottles of local Kotayk beer and enjoyed the chilly, hailing but enjoyable weather Tsaghkadzor had treated us to. It’s journeys like these that make for memorable travel tales & I was fortunate to be a part of this one.

It was time to head back to the Yerevan and there was some insane traffic as we entered the city borders. But thanks to Murat Uyar’s soundtrack “Close your eyes” that I’d downloaded thanks to Shazam (an app, I had no idea you could identify any song with.

Ava felt I belonged to Stone Age for not knowing it), the wait to reach the hotel didn’t make me restless.

We had dinner in our hotel itself & later that evening, decided to explore some nightlife in the city.

Post going through an entire brochure containing a list of the best pubs & lounges that our hotel provided us with; we opted to go to THE most happening club in Armenia – Paparazzi & oh boy, what a choice that turned out to be!

 

PAPARAZZI CLUB

We reached the building where the pub was located and the passage to the entrance was slightly dingy. We entered from the backside like thieves and find out that the elevator isn’t working.

So we climbed levels of stairs to get to the 4th floor. On the way up, we came across a glow sign that said: “Let’s get high”.

That was amusing because working out to get high was not how we planned the night. However, having reached the club, we found out we were the only ones there. We realised it was 9pm on a weekday.

Basically, we didn’t pick the right time or the right day to enter the club. But what we did end up picking was the absolute attention of the bartenders. As a result, we received complete V.I.P. treatment throughout our time at the club.

The club had a plush, colorful, vibrant & high- tech interior, consisting of a seating area with tables and round sofas, with a dance floor and a square drinks counter.

The counter had a high-chair bar seating in the front & a colourful flashy “Wall of bottles” at the back with the sign attached saying FBI – Famous Beer Inspector , so we knew what we were in for.

There was a cafe at the top as well but we preferred to stay in the club section of Paparazzi.

The two bartenders – one from Syria (who Ava found really hot, I couldn’t figure what was hot about him) &  the other a local, attended to us introducing themselves, asking us about our experience in the city and the day trips we had taken.

Then what followed, was absolute artistry as the bartenders put up one smashing drink after another. They played tricks, showing their craftsmanship & skill at the counter with some tossing, spinning, balancing, crushing and shaking to get that perfect cocktail.

Not to forget – the continuous supply of “welcome shots” which tourists get after every round of drinks.

The music was top notch with the DJ spinning foot tapping numbers from all genres of music – techno, house, EDM, Trance, you name it & they played it.

No alcohol was spared – gin, whisky, rum, vodka, tequila, beer, each one contributed to making sublime and divine potions with my absolute favourite being the “Surprise Motherfucker” cocktail (not kidding, it was a drink).

 

 

The drink definitely lived upto it’s reputation. The bartender combined all kinds of alcohol and at the end, smashed a Heineken bottle in my glass. You bet that surprise was an understatement to the reaction I had.

Then what followed was a firework drink which they made for Ava (guess the Syrian dude liked her too). That was the highlight of what was an absolutely dazzling night.

If Paparazzi was an inclusion in the day-trip, then it’d rightly be one of the top places to visit in Armenia as far as the party scene goes!

Don’t let the entry fool you, the ambience is top class. If you want to experience nightlife in Yerevan, then I absolutely recommend this place to you.

That was the end to our second day with us having explored the “5 top places to visit in Armenia”.

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