Mountains & spas
Over a 2,410-metre Silk Road pass to a fourteenth-century caravanserai, then down to a spa town built around hot mineral springs.
Duration
11 hours
Group
Small group, max 16
Difficulty
Easy
Languages
EN · RU · DE · FR · IT · ES
Worth knowingThe Vardenyats pass is snowbound in winter. From November to April we run this route via the tunnel instead, which misses the caravanserai — so we simply do not sell it in those months.
South-east and then up: the road climbs in long switchbacks onto the Vardenyats pass at 2,410 metres, with the southern basin of Lake Sevan behind you.
Built in 1332 by Prince Chesar Orbelian on the Silk Road route. A single basalt hall in three naves with seven pairs of polyhedral pillars, three vaults pierced with oculi for light and smoke, and stone troughs for animals in the side aisles. The inscriptions are in Armenian, Persian and Arabic — the Armenian one names Chesar and his wife Khorishah. It is cold and dark inside, and six hundred years of animals and traders have polished the stone.
The descent gives the best road views in the country on a clear day.
A spa town at about 2,080 metres built around hot mineral springs, whose water is Armenia's best-known export brand. The drinking gallery pours from a row of taps at different temperatures, and the water is strongly mineral and an acquired taste — trying all of them is part of the visit.
A fall of about seventy metres known as the Mermaid's Hair, below the town.
Back in Yerevan by roughly 19:30.
In the price
Not included
Stops in the order we visit them. Distances are indicative, not a driving route.
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Lakes & forest
An alpine sea at 1,900 metres, a forest monastery with a vaulted refectory, and the green town Armenians call their Switzerland.
Faith & stone
The mother church of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the ruins of a vast seventh-century rotunda, and a monastery on the lip of a canyon.
Yerevan
A half day through the pink tuff city Alexander Tamanyan drew in 1924, ending in the cellars where Armenian brandy has been made since 1887.
Want it privately?
Your own vehicle and guide, your own start time, and the freedom to linger where it is worth lingering.