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.
Duration
9 hours
Group
Small group, max 16
Difficulty
Easy — one optional ladder descent
Languages
EN · RU · DE · FR · IT · ES
Worth knowingArarat is shy. It is clearest in the early morning and after rain, and often hides behind haze on hot summer afternoons — which is why this tour goes to Khor Virap first, not last.
Forty minutes south of Yerevan the plain opens out and the mountain fills the windscreen. Ararat is in Turkey — it has never been part of the modern republic — and it is on the coat of arms all the same.
A fortified monastery on a low hill, roughly a hundred metres from a closed border. Beneath it is the pit where King Trdat III held Gregory the Illuminator for thirteen years before Gregory converted him and Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity, traditionally in 301. You can climb down a near-vertical iron ladder into the chamber, about six metres deep and four and a half wide. The church above it dates from 1662.
An hour on, the road turns off into a narrow gorge of brick-red limestone and climbs to a monastery the same colour as the cliffs. The Surb Astvatsatsin church of 1339 carries the work of Momik — sculptor, architect and manuscript illuminator — including a tympanum of God the Father that is unlike anything else in Armenian carving. The upper storey is reached by a narrow cantilevered stone stair on the façade.
A long lunch at a family restaurant in Vayots Dzor — barbecue, garden vegetables, herbs, and bread from the oven. Vegetarians are easily looked after; tell us in advance.
The Areni-1 cave here produced the world's oldest known leather shoe, about 3500 BC, and the oldest known winery — vats, a press and grape seeds, roughly 6,100 years old. We taste at a working cellar: dry reds from the indigenous Areni Noir, and usually something in pomegranate for those who want it.
Home by about 19:00.
In the price
Not included
Stops in the order we visit them. Distances are indicative, not a driving route.
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Want it privately?
Your own vehicle and guide, your own start time, and the freedom to linger where it is worth lingering.