Posts

Image
 Armenia June 29th Last Day - walk in the basalt canyon - church in the cliff We meet Arara Tours for a beer This is our final day of our wonderful holiday. Tonight at 2 a.m. the taxi will be waiting to take us to the airport. I am glad that we are out of the town today and a (very) short walk is planned. However, pretty (or not) Yerevan is, it is always an anti-climax to be "waiting around" for your flight home. We will be leaving with heavy hearts and with the intention of returning. But more of that (maybe) in a final blog report. Pick up and first bad news for Mher; Renate has been reading her guide book over breakfast and there is a short description of an artist, Sergey Paradjanov, and we want to visit the museum of his life and works instead of the National Museum! Two phone calls later and all arranged. We drove out to the Azat River and its canyon. The destination was the Geghard Monastery and the hellenistic Garni Temple at the village of Garni (which happens to be
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
 Armenia June 28th  Sacrifice and Sacrilege Etchmiadzin - Repair and Reconstruct Today I will begin by quoting from our program and from the Armenian website of hetq (a group of investigative journalists).  Today you will have a city tour around Yerevan, the ancient capital of Armenia, which was founded in 782 B.C.  Armenians are proud that Yerevan is 29 years older than Rome. During the city tour, you will walk around the center of  the city and visit Cascade, Opera and Ballet Theater, Mashtots Avenue, and the Republic Square. The tour also includes a  visit to Matenadaran Museum, a repository of one of the richest manuscript collections in the world.  When the construction boom of 2000-2004 began, there was no institution with the authority to intervene in the destruction of monuments, because no list of Yerevan monuments had been finalized for preservation by the government. This was during a period of time when City Hall was realizing a number of huge construction programs, includi
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
Armenia  27th June  Monastery - Graveyard - Caravanserai - Short Walk - Winery - Bed Typical Armenian Hospitality or Guide Advantage Hike to the medieval fortress of King Smbat, standing on the elevation of about 1950 m,  you will continue to Takhats Kar Monastery on the elevation of 2080 m. On your way to Yerevan visit Areni wine market  where you’ll have a chance to taste one of famous wines in Armenia. Head to Yerevan.  Hiking – 12 km / Ascent| descent – 680 m  The program for the day looked harmless enough, but by the end of the day we were absolutely knackered! Just a few kilometers from our lovely hotel on Lake Sevan (and now that the sun was shining, we were really sad to leave!) was a small ancient monastery (Hayravank, dating to 9th-12th centuries) where we made a short stop. A few km further and a graveyard, and a much longer stop. Renate had read about the site and Mher obliged with an unscheduled stop. There are many very early graves and headstones (Khachkars)  at the Nora
Post a Comment
Read more