Trip report: Armenia
Visited in April 2022
Over the Easter weekend in 2018, I visited Georgia, a small country in the Caucasus. It was my 70th country and my expectations were honestly quite low as I knew relatively little about Georgia before I went. It turned out that I absolutely loved Georgia. The nature, the capital Tbilisi, the food, the monasteries and also the cheap excursions within the country ensured that Georgia became one of my favorite countries. Even today, after visiting 130 countries, Georgia would still be in my top20.
Since then, I have not visited any other country in the Caucasus. But almost exactly four years later, also over the Easter weekend, my second trip to the Caucasus followed, this time to Armenia. Expecting Armenia to be a fairly similar country to Georgia, my anticipation was a lot greater this time. Although Armenia is more than twice as small as the neighboring country, similarities in terms of nature, monasteries and the like are definitely not to be denied.
Once I decided to travel to Armenia, the first thing I had to figure out was how best to get there. Because frankly, pretty much all flight routes from Europe to Armenia and back are a nightmare. Virtually every flight in Armenia arrives and departs at rather ungodly hours. The flights are allegedly scheduled like this to ensure that the diaspora from the United States can make the connection in Europe. The same applies to Georgia, by the way.
My Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt also landed after 4am. Although Zvartnots International Airport in the Armenian capital Yerevan is only 15 minutes away from the city center, it was 6am when I went to bed in my hotel. However, such outward journeys have almost become a habit for me. One month ago, I landed in Jordan at the exact same time.
I had three days to spend in Armenia. Due to my arrival time, I didn’t want to book anything for the first day and use the remaining hours of the day for Yerevan. For the other two days, however, I wanted to do day-trips that would take me out of Yerevan and show me the country’s nature. And just like in Georgia, the similarities don’t seem to stop, in Armenia you can book excursions at extremely reasonable prices.
There are two tour operators that make this possible: Hyur Service and Envoy Tours. Both offer full day-tours for which you pay at best between €15-25. Hyur still seems to be a bit cheaper and have in my opinion a slightly better program than Envoy, so I booked with this operator. It’s definitely worth checking out both websites though.
The day in Yerevan was actually quite pleasant. I checkout out the sights of the city together with Korcan, another traveler who wanted to visit every country in the world. Since there is not an abundance of attractions in Yerevan, it does not take very long to see everything. Half a day should be enough. Besides, Yerevan is a city that can be easily explored on foot, as most of the sights are not far from each other.
The only sight that is outside the city center is also Yerevan’s most important one: the Armenian Genocide Museum. As the name suggests, this place is dedicated to the Armenian Genocide during World War I, which the perpetrators, the Turks, have still not recognized as genocide.
You can take a cab to get there. There are several taxi apps for Armenia, but I only used Yandex. The prices for the rides always ranged between 1,000-2,000 drams, which is about 1-3 euros. The higher prices, say 2,000 drams, are for longer distances, such as coming from the airport to the city center.
While the Genocide Museum is probably the most important sight, the Cascade Complex is, in my opinion, the best. This staircase complex offers a stunning view over the city and in our case even a spectacular view of Mount Ararat. I recommend visiting this complex either in the morning or just before sunset. In the afternoon the sun is not really at its best to take good photos.
Other sights that were quite cool were the Mother Armenia statue and Republic Square, which you inevitably pass by when you’re in the city. Armenia was a part of the Soviet Union, which you can definitely notice when in Yerevan. The cityscape offers a mixture of European architecture, modern buildings and typical remnants of the Soviet era. Even though Yerevan offers some beautiful corners, I would not describe the city as particularly pretty. It lacks a bit of charm, but this is made up for by the fact that the city is quite lively and there is a lot going on.
Basically, my conclusion about Yerevan is that the city is okay. There are definitely more interesting cities, especially when you compare the city to the Georgian capital Tbilisi. However, Yerevan still offers enough things to keep you busy for a day. Moreover, Yerevan has a great restaurant scene, what makes the city a good base for your Armenia trip. After coming back from day-trips, you can spoil yourself with some culinary delights here. And believe me, the food in Armenia is amazing. Tip: try the two restaurants Lavash and Tavern when in Yerevan. They are both excellent.
The next two days we visited several sights of the country, mainly monasteries, but also other things like the Garni Temple or Lake Sevan, one of the national symbols of Armenia. Monastery hopping is actually the main tourist activity in Armenia outside of Yerevan. The monasteries are nice and beautiful, but after the third monastery it also gets a bit monotonous. Just as it is the case in Southeast Asia with the temples.
However, I would not even call the monasteries themselves the main attraction, but the nature that surrounds them. Whether it is the Noravank Monastery, located in a gorge full of red cliffs, or the Khor Virap Monastery, standing just a few kilometers in front of the mighty Mount Ararat – the sight is magnificent in each case. Armenia is a country blessed with beautiful nature and obviously the monasteries were built in the most scenic places.
Lake Sevan also seems to be on pretty much every itinerary in Armenia. Is it necessary to have seen Lake Sevan? I don’t know. I mean, it is close to Yerevan, so why not. In the end, it’s just a lake with a monastery or two on the shore. Maybe my lack of enthusiasm is also because, with a few exceptions, I don’t really care much for lakes in general. Nevertheless, it’s not a waste of time if you go there but don’t worry either if you cannot fit it in.
Other than that, we visited the Garni Temple and the Geghard Monastery. Garni is a cool sight and for a change not a monastery. It is the only standing Greco-Roman building in Armenia and the former Soviet Union. Small tip, we were there at about 11am and the sun did not really make good photos possible. You might want to take that into account when you visit this place. Better go earlier in the morning or before sunset. Geghard, on the other hand, was another monastery. I would say it was the least interesting of the four we saw on that trip.
A few words about the tours. On the first day, we joined a group tour by Hyur Service in a bus filled to capacity with 48 seats. Since Hyur is not the only tour provider in Armenia, it sometimes happened that several hundred people arrived at one attraction at the same time. That was obviously not so great.
In general, the attractions in Armenia were very crowded. There were sometimes so many people at the sights that I almost wished I was back in 2021. Although back then traveling with all the PCR tests, constantly changing quarantine regulations and so on was energy-sapping, but on the other hand you had the sights to yourself. However, it must also be said that in Armenia it was mainly locals who were at the sights and not even particularly many foreign tourists. Therefore, visiting Armenia on a warm and sunny Easter weekend has not only advantages.
That was also the reason why I would call that group tour only so-so. In Georgia, it was also the case that the cheap day-trips were group tours. At that time, I was in a minivan with about twelve other people, though, which was in fact more convenient. As a consequence, our second tour in Armenia was a private tour. It was also organized by Hyur and it was only about twice as expensive as the group tour. I would definitely recommend a private tour for this reason. The driver we had was a nice old gentleman who spoke English. Although he wasn’t a real guide, he was able to tell us a few things about his country. Another good alternative would be to rent a car and drive yourself.
Having said all that, the question now arises: is Armenia worth a trip? In this article I have often drawn a comparison between Armenia and Georgia. For this reason, it was also inevitable for me to determine which of the two countries was better. But first, a few words about my trip.
If I had to name the highlights, Mount Ararat would come to my mind first. This mountain seems to be one of the most important symbols of Armenia. Probably even the most important one. I even heard a mother calling her young child Ararat. This is all the more amazing because Mount Ararat is not even in Armenia but in Turkey, an enemy country. However, Armenians consider the area where the mountain is located as the historical territory of Armenia. For this reason, the importance of this mountain remains.
Unfortunately, it is not guaranteed that you can see the mountain when you are in Armenia. It really depends on the weather and sometimes it is too hazy to see it, especially in Yerevan. We, on the other hand, were lucky and could see the mountain from almost every place we went.
Another highlight was the food. Armenian food is probably best described as a mixture of Turkish, Georgian, Russian and Middle Eastern with some elements of its own. The fact that there are so many Turkish dishes in Armenia surprised me because of the history of these two countries. It goes without saying that Armenians refer to Turkish dishes as Western Armenian cuisine.
The dishes are also not exactly the same. For example, Lahmacun, the Turkish pizza, is called Lahmajo in Armenia and is made with beef instead of lamb. Armenia, of course, calls it Armenian pizza. Which version was there first? I don’t know and for me it doesn’t really matter, because both are delicious. I even liked Lahmajo a bit more!
Another highlight was that Armenia was quite inexpensive. I already mentioned the cheap prices for the day-trips, but you don’t pay a fortune for the accommodations either. I paid about €30 per night at the R&R Hotel. The location of the hotel was great and it was clean and quiet (assuming you have a first floor room, because the basement rooms only have a tiny window). The food plus, as mentioned, the taxi-rides with Yandex were also pretty cheap.
On the other hand, there were no real lowlights. Here I could at most mention the service quality in restaurants, which is just as poor as in Georgia or in certain Eastern European countries. Everything takes extremely long, some items are forgotten when ordering or something wrong is delivered, plus the waiters are unfriendly and have a “what the hell do you want from us?” attitude. It’s best not to get upset about it and just accept that this is how it goes here.
So, considering the highlights, the lowlights plus my general experiences, I would describe this trip as good. It wasn’t outstanding, but quite decent. The tours of Hyur could have been better to be honest, but at least they did not cost a lot. Also, my timing was not really the best because the sights were too crowded on this Easter weekend. For this reason, I recommend not doing day-trips in Armenia on weekends or holidays.
Apart from my experiences, I found Armenia to be a country well worth a trip. Also (or especially) for a short trip, as I did, as the country is compact and you can see a lot in a short time. The country has beautiful landscapes, is cheap and is a pretty easy country to travel around, so you certainly won’t go wrong if you choose Armenia as your vacation destination.
In direct comparison with Georgia, however, Armenia draws the short straw in my opinion. Although both countries have many similarities, be it in terms of nature, monasteries or food, Georgia is still a bit more interesting in my opinion. Monastery-hopping is the main attraction for tourists in Georgia as well, but the country still offers a bit more variety. Besides, Tbilisi is also definitely the more interesting city than Yerevan. Additionally, there were some quirky elements like the Stalin Museum in Gori that somehow make Georgia more exciting.
At the end of the day, Armenia was still a special country for me. Because after 131 countries I have now been to 2/3 of all countries in the world. So I can definitely speak of a milestone here. Now the last third begins, maybe the hardest, when I look at the remaining countries. However, it is probably also the third for which I need the least time. Because out of the remaining 66 countries, almost every third one is a small island country, where it takes no more than 2-3 days to see every inch of it. And some of them are already waiting for me in a few weeks….
