Faith & stone
North to the Georgian border, where two UNESCO monasteries face each other across a gorge and a pink stone basilica has stood since the eighth century.
Duration
12 hours
Group
Small group, max 16
Difficulty
Easy — long drive
Languages
EN · RU · DE · FR · IT · ES
Worth knowingHaghpat was inscribed alone in 1996; the property was extended in 2000 to add Sanahin and is now listed as "Monasteries of Haghpat and Sanahin".
Three hours up the Yerevan–Tbilisi road, past Vanadzor, into the Debed canyon — a 176-kilometre river that marks the Georgian border at Sadakhlo and strings a corridor of medieval monuments along its walls.
Founded in the 930s or 940s under King Abas I. Between its two churches runs a vaulted gallery lined with stone benches: the lecture hall where Grigor Magistros taught, worn smooth where students sat. UNESCO singles Sanahin out for its school of illuminators and calligraphers. The Nshkharatun is often described as the oldest Armenian library.
In the same village. Artem Mikoyan, born here in 1905, co-founded the design bureau behind the MiG; his brother Anastas was a senior Soviet statesman. A MiG-21 stands outside, which is not a sentence you write about many monastery villages.
Three kilometres away as the crow flies and a full descent and re-climb by road. Founded around 976 by Queen Khosrovanush, wife of Ashot III; the cathedral of Surb Nshan was finished in 991, the belltower in 1245. It stands on a shelf with the gorge falling away behind it, and the belltower's arches frame nothing but air.
A three-nave domed basilica in pink felsite, generally dated to the fifth to seventh centuries with a major eighth-century rebuilding under Catholicos Hovhannes Odznetsi, who came from the village. At sunset the whole church goes the colour of raw salmon while the gorge below is already in shadow.
We reach Yerevan around 20:00.
In the price
Not included
Stops in the order we visit them. Distances are indicative, not a driving route.
You might also like
Classic Armenia
Armenia's only standing Greco-Roman temple, a monastery carved into solid rock, and bread pulled hot from a clay pit oven.
Classic Armenia
The pit where Armenia's Christianity began, a red-rock canyon monastery, and the valley where wine has been made for six thousand years.
Lakes & forest
An alpine sea at 1,900 metres, a forest monastery with a vaulted refectory, and the green town Armenians call their Switzerland.
Want it privately?
Your own vehicle and guide, your own start time, and the freedom to linger where it is worth lingering.