Իմ Ուղևորությունը Երևանում (Վերջապես), կանգառով Վենետիկում / Il mio viaggio a Yerevan (Finalmente), con tappa a Venezia

Last night I asked the guy at the reception in the hostel if he could do me a list of the must-see/must-do things in Yerevan. I woke up and there was a different person on reception and the night guy had forgotten to do the list. I asked her the same question and she provided a couple of things to do. The one thing I had seen I wanted to do was the Blue Mosque and the Cascade Complex.

I started to walk to the mosque and my feet were crying. The blisters were crazy. I used shoes that I hadn’t broken in properly. Bad mistake. What I also didn’t realise was I was using insoles that give me not enough room in the shoe. I decided to not use them and the relief was instant. It was so nice. Anyway, I carried on walking and I went to the 2800th Anniversary park. This is a park for the 2800th anniversary of the country. As I was walking, I went past some sprinklers and just stood there to feel the cold water on my legs. It was so glorious in the 38 – 40 degree heat.

I carried on walking up to Republic Square and you could see the Soviet influence on the country. Wide streets and big buildings. I was on a mission to find some souvenirs and reception had given me a place to pick some up. They were spot on. I got my flag and magnets. I then carried on walking to find a supermarket to get some junk food and water and fizzy.

I went and dropped some stuff off at the hostel and stayed for an hour or so as I was feeling sick. After an hour I decided that I wanted to climb the steps at the Cascade Complex. I went walking through the Opera and Ballet Theatre grounds and I went to snap a pic of the Aram Khachaturian statue. He wrote such pieces as Sabre Dance and Masquerade Waltz, They are both awesome pieces.

I then carried on walking to the complex. The complex was huge and seemed to go right up to the sky. I was daunted by them. The ground below the complex has some cool art statues. It’s definitely worth looking at them. I then carried on up the stairs of the complex to get some panoramic views of the city. On a nice clear day, you can see Mount Ararat but it was hazy today so I couldn’t see it.

For those of you that don’t want to walk up, there are escalators that take you almost to the top of the steps. I also carried on up to the Memorial of the 50th Anniversary of October Revolution. On the way up, there was some shade and it was nice and cool. It was a nice relief from sweating and being too warm on the climb up, The views were equally as incredible up here as they were at the top of the Cascades.

I had a nice walk around at the top. I wanted to go to the Mother of Armenia statue but decided against it as I had a walking tour booked and I wanted to have a nap before I went on the tour. I headed back down and went to the supermarket to get some more food and drink and then go and have a nap.

I went and met the walking tour guide and the group was huge. There were about 25 of us. I didn’t really get a whole lot from the walking tour as the guide was weakling fast, talking fast, giving information overload. The walking tour was also 3 hours and I was getting fatigued by all aspects of it. I love walking tours but this one was different. What I remember from it is that we started at the fountains. There are 2800 of them to represent the age of the country. We then went to the museum on Republic Square. This was a museum dedicated to the country. We also went by the market there. It is a flea market and it gets super busy on weekends and you can barely move.

We carried on walking to the metro station at Republic Square and he told us the story of how Yerevan got a metro. The Soviet Union said that a city has to have 1 million inhabitants for it to be considered for a metro. The city had 700,000 and they brought in an extra 300,00 people and registered them. They invited the transport minister of the union, They had car drivers come to the city and cause an artificial traffic jam so the minister would approve a metro.

This worked and they now have a 10-station metro system. The metro system is exactly the same as the ones I’ve used in Kyiv and Baku.

I really don’t remember much else after this. I headed to get some food and then to go sleep as I had a tour booked for tomorrow and it was a 09:00 start.

Total steps: 23,013

Total miles: 11.26

Below are some pics from today

Today was the first of two tours I booked with the hostel. It was a cosy tour. There were five of us alongside the tour guide. The tour guide was called Giving and he was very knowledgeable about his country. We had some cool places planned for the tour. We had the following on the list:

Symphony of Stones
Garni
Geghard
Noratus
Lake Sevan

There was quite a lot of walking and climbing involved in this tour and my feet were crying once they found out about this. Ha. It was still really cool to do this tour.

The Symphony of Stones was really cool to see. The canyon reminded me of walking down the canyon at Petra in Jordan.

The Symphony of Stones are hexagonal stones on the mountains and coming up from the ground. They also have great acoustics. You were able to hear the water all around you even though it was just on one side of the canyon. You could also hear the birds chirping and it sounded like it was in stereo. It was really cool to listen to. We walked down to near bottom of the canyon and we were able to see the temple at Garni. It looked like a smaller version of the Parthenon in Athens. Garni was our next stop on the tour.

We got to Garni and we were told this was a pagan site and the temple was a pagan temple. Right next to the temple were the ruins of a Christian church. The guide said it was very unusual for a pagan temple and a church to be in such close proximity. The grounds also afforded great views of the canyon around and the mountains. I was loving the views. I was in awe.

The next stop was Geghard Monastery. The drive there was really cool. Mountains and a river. I just enjoyed looking out the window. The monastery here has some original Khachkars. These are gravestones. They are all unique and depict the person’s occupation, their life and the way they died. They were really cool to see. Inside the monastery, there is a water source that is said to have healing properties. There was a queue for this water. We walked up the steps to an inside cavern. The cavern has really good acoustics and if someone is singing, it resonates all around and to the rooms (if that’s what you call them) downstairs.

We carried on around the grounds and went towards the river and across a bridge to where they had some superstition stones. The stones are placed in columns of 7. It is said if you are able to stack the seven stones the dreams you have will come true. Our group chose some stones and we managed to stack them atop each other and they remained standing. These columns were all over in this bit and they were in all sorts of places they could be. On the ground, on ledges, on bigger stones. It was really cool to see.

The next stop was lunch with a family at Noratus. I wasn’t overly keen as I am such a picky eater and wasn’t sure what would be provided. I asked the hostel reception to ensure I had nothing that would upset my stomach. I had some bread and some chicken. It was really nice. After lunch, we crossed the street to the cemetery here. This is quite a big cemetery and has a lot of khachkars. There are several that are marked to look at around the cemetery. The guide took us around them and explained what was on them and the meanings behind them. The first one was one of the biggest and this was for the founder of the village. He said that you could see how they started off lower in the ground and got bigger as the cemetery expanded and was a symbol of how people got more extravagant as time went on.

He said that there are stones on top of each other and the higher they were, the more important a person was. These were generally reserved for clergy and notable people. He also took us to another part where there were more extravagant stones and these had images of the faces of those buried there. Some of them had just a birth date and were awaiting the people to die so the death date could be put on.

We left here and headed around Lake Sevan to the Sevan Peninsula to get some views out over the lake and also where the president and government officials holiday. There was also a house there that is the Sevan writer’s house and is a classic example of Soviet architecture. We walked up the steps and to the church there and then further up to the end of the path and this also gave some great views over the lake. I could have stayed ages looking out over the water and across the mountains.

This was the last stop on the tour and the next stop was back at the hostel. It was an awesome tour but very tiring. We got back to the hostel and I went and lay down for about 45 minutes so I could rest my feet and stop the blisters from hurting. The plan was to go out to see the Singing Fountains at Republic Square. The hostel said to get there early to get somewhere to sit and watch the show. The show started at 21:00 and I got there about 30 minutes before the start thinking this would be enough time to get a prime seat. How wrong I was. There were very few places left to sit and I managed to find somewhere. Everyone else had the same idea and then it was standing room only so there wasn’t much point sitting there as I couldn’t get good pics and vids. I stood up just after it started and stood on the corner and I was able to get some pics and vids. You can see a few of them below.

The fountains run from 21:00 for a few hours every night except Tuesday. Tuesday is when they do the cleaning of the fountains across the city.

After I was done there, I jumped on the metro and went to Marshal Baghramyan station and walked down from there back to the hostel. The walk down involved passing several embassies and they were quite nice. The walk down was nice – even if I did miss a turn and had to backtrack a little.

I went back to the hostel to go to sleep ready for the 09:00 start tomorrow for the next tour.

Total steps: 16,081

Total miles: 8.08

Below are some pics from today

Today we had the same tour guide as yesterday. This was more a monastery and wine tour and the guide did say that this involved a lot less hill climbing than yesterday. I swear I could hear my feet sing. This group was double the size of yesterday but it meant a better minibus. It had better air con too which was wonderful for this fat lump!

This itinerary was as follows:

St Hripsime
Echmiadzen
Khor Virap
Noravank

St Hripsime is a small church dedicated to Hripsime. It was a good visit but nothing to go out of your way for.

Our next stop was Echmiadzen and this is the seat of the Armenian church. The guide called it “The Vatican of Armenia”. The grounds also host a school for the priests. The main cathedral here was currently closed for renovations. As we were walking around we saw a baptismal service take place. The Armenian church doesn’t really baptise babies and waits for people to be a little older to be baptised.

We also carried on walking and came across the start of service. It involved singing and walking and the ringing of bells.

The next stop was Khor Virap. This one was a bit of a climb. This was right next to the Turkish border. This land border is closed. The grounds afforded great views of Mount Ararat. Mount Ararat is said to be the place where Noah and his ark landed. The mountain used to be in Armenia but is now on the Turkish side of the border. There is a strip of land between the two borders and it is worked by Armenian farmers

On the grounds here there is also another huge cemetery. We headed for a barbecue lunch with another village family. They have these pots in the ground where they cook bread and they also use it to barbecue meat. The bread is cooked and then they close the pipe that feeds oxygen to the oven and then put the meat in to cook and smoke.

The meat was so tender and the chicken skin tasted so nice. They also put potatoes on with the meat and they were so good too. We spent about 2 hours here for lunch and I was so done after about an hour. I just wanted to get going to our next stop. I could feel my stomach beginning to hurt. We left and then headed to our last stop. The drive through the canyon and up the mountains was awesome again.

We got to the top of the canyon and went to Noravank. This has two churches and ono them is a two-storey church. The upper level was closed due to safety reasons. The guide said several years ago a tourist was climbing the steps and fell and died. The steps have no guard rails sadly. Noravank took us close to the border with Azerbaijan.

He said that this border was closed by land and by air. Citizens of each country are forbidden from visiting the other by their respective governments. This is all down to the war in 2018 where Armenia lost part of its country to Azerbaijan. The Russians brokered a deal that involved giving a piece of Armenian land to Azerbaijan and this helped end the war.

We spent about an hour here before leaving to head back to the hostel. I had had so much to drink at lunch that my bladder was in overdrive and I had asked if we could stop at a bathroom. It worked out well as we were able to get some shots of Mount Ararat uncovered. The views earlier had the top of the mountain covered in clouds.

On the way back to the hostel, the guide played traditional Armenian music and some Khachaturian pieces. It was awesome. He also told us that any people with surnames ending in IAN or YAN are 99.9% of Armenian descent.

We got back to the hostel and I had to pack as I was leaving for Tbilisi the next day and I had to be at the bus station for 08:15 to get a seat on the bus. Today was a really good day and I am so glad I did the tour and I am so glad I got to Yerevan.

Stay tuned for the adventures of the trip to Tbilisi

Total steps: 10,318

Total miles: 5.12

Below are some pics from today