The deep south
A long day south: the world's longest reversible cable car, a ninth-century monastery on a headland, and a canyon of cave houses joined by a swinging bridge.
Duration
14 hours
Group
Small group, max 16
Difficulty
Moderate — long drive, optional canyon descent
Languages
EN · RU · DE · FR · IT · ES
Worth knowingThe cable car occasionally closes for maintenance or high wind. If that happens we drive up to the monastery by the switchback road instead and refund the ticket portion in cash on the day.
This is a 250-kilometre drive each way, so we leave at seven. The road runs south through Ararat, climbs the Vayots Dzor gorges, crosses the plateau and drops into Syunik. It is one of the great drives in the Caucasus and much of the day is spent enjoying it.
A short stop at an eighteen-metre fall on the Vorotan, best in late spring when the snowmelt is running.
A cable car of 5,752 metres, opened in 2010, holding the Guinness record as the longest reversible aerial tramway. It crosses the Vorotan gorge in about twelve minutes, several hundred metres above the river, and the floor of the valley simply drops away beneath you.
Founded in the ninth century on a promontory with the gorge on three sides. By the fourteenth century its university was among the most important in the Armenian world, teaching theology, philosophy, painting and calligraphy. Look for the *gavazan* — an octagonal pillar, hinged at its base, that was built to sway at the approach of an earthquake or a horse-borne army.
A canyon on the way back where people lived in cut-rock and cave dwellings well into the twentieth century, the last of them leaving in the 1950s. A 160-metre swinging footbridge, built by villagers in 2012, crosses the ravine. It moves. That is the point.
We stop for dinner en route and reach Yerevan late — usually between 21:00 and 22:00.
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.