Classic Armenia in 8 days: Yerevan, Sevan, Dilijan, Vayots Dzor and Tatev

It contains five monasteries and not eleven. That is a decision rather than an omission. Geghard, Haghartsin, Sevanavank, Noravank and Tatev are five of the best buildings in the Caucasus, and by putting a wine day, a lake day and a city day between them you finish the trip still able to tell them apart.

Who it suits: first-time visitors, couples, pairs of friends, and anyone who wants medieval architecture, wine and mountains without a punishing drive. Two optional walks of about ninety minutes, nothing harder.

Your specialist: a named Armenia specialist here, with our long-standing Yerevan partner running the ground.

Day by day

Day 1: Arrive Yerevan. Almost every flight into Zvartnots lands between two and five in the morning, which we will have warned you about at the quoting stage. Private transfer, twenty-five minutes, and a room you can check into immediately rather than at two in the afternoon. Sleep. We schedule nothing before four o’clock. Evening walk down to Republic Square and dinner, which we book, because the first Armenian meal should not be the one you find at random.

Day 2: Yerevan on foot. A guided late morning, which is when the city starts. Republic Square and the Tamanian plan that produced it, the Cascade stairway with its sculpture terraces, the covered GUM market for the dried fruit and the cheese, and the Matenadaran, the manuscript library, which is the best museum in the country and needs a proper hour and a half. Afternoon free. Evening in the small streets around Saryan and Pushkin, where the wine bars are.

Day 3: Tsitsernakaberd, Echmiadzin and Zvartnots. The genocide memorial and museum in the morning. It is not an optional stop for understanding this country and it is hard, so we put it first and leave the afternoon light. Then west to Vagharshapat for the Mother See at Echmiadzin, the administrative centre of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the ruined seventh-century circular cathedral at Zvartnots on the way back. Back in Yerevan by five, with nothing scheduled after it.

Day 4: Garni, Geghard, and north to Dilijan. East out of the city to the first-century Hellenistic temple at Garni, the only one of its kind left in the region, with the basalt column formation in the gorge below it. Then Geghard, half cut into the rock, where you should ask your guide to arrange the singing, because the acoustics in the rock-cut chamber are the reason to be there. North after lunch, about two and a half hours, over the pass into the forest and down to Dilijan. Two nights.

Day 5: Dilijan and Lake Sevan. The Haghartsin monastery in the woods above the town in the morning, which is a completely different setting from anything in the dry south. Then over to Lake Sevan at about 6,200 feet (1,900 m), the Sevanavank churches on the peninsula, and Noratus on the western shore, where the largest surviving field of khachkars, the carved cross-stones, stands in a field with sheep in it and almost nobody else. Noratus is the better of the two and we allow more time there. Back to Dilijan for the night, or on to a lakeside base if the weather is behaving in August.

Day 6: South to Vayots Dzor and Areni. The long transfer, about four hours, either over the Vardenyats pass at about 7,900 feet (2,410 m) with the fourteenth-century caravanserai at the top, or by the lower road if the pass is under snow. Then Noravank, at the end of a narrow red gorge, which is the most photographed monastery in the country and deserves it. Afternoon at a family cellar in Areni: not a tasting room, a working cellar with the person who made the wine. The Areni-1 cave nearby held a winemaking installation dated to around 4100 BC, which is the oldest known anywhere. Night at Areni or Yeghegnadzor.

Day 7: Tatev and Khndzoresk. Two and a half hours further south into Syunik. The Wings of Tatev cable car runs about 3.5 miles (5.7 km) across the Vorotan gorge to a ninth-century monastery on a promontory, and it is one of the few attractions in the region that is worth a queue. Afternoon at Khndzoresk, the abandoned cave village below Goris, with the swinging footbridge across the ravine, which is a forty-minute walk down and back up. Long day, and we build it as the last full day for that reason.

Day 8: Back to Yerevan, and Khor Virap. North on the main road, about four and a half hours, with a stop at Khor Virap in the Ararat valley: a monastery on a mound in the vineyards with the closed Turkish border immediately behind it and Mount Ararat, 16,854 feet (5,137 m), filling the sky if the morning is clear. Afternoon in Yerevan for whatever you did not do, and the airport whenever your flight leaves, which is usually the middle of the night.

What is included

Seven nights of accommodation with breakfast, a private car with an English-speaking driver on every transfer day, licensed English-speaking guides on four days, all monastery, museum and site entries, the Tatev cable car, a family wine cellar visit with the winemaker in Areni, a village lunch in Vayots Dzor, the arranged singing at Geghard, a day-by-day document with honest drive times, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Yerevan partner team for the whole trip.

What we would change, and when

• Travelling July to September? Add a day and take the road up Mount Aragats to Kari Lake at about 10,800 feet (3,290 m), with Amberd fortress on the way. It is open only in high summer and it is the best mountain day near the capital.
• More interested in food and wine than architecture? Swap the Tatev leg for a second night in Vayots Dzor and a Yerevan kitchen day. That is our wine and food route.
• Short on time? Cut Tatev rather than compressing it. A day trip to Tatev from Yerevan is eleven hours in a car for ninety minutes at the monastery and we will not build it.
• Travelling in winter? The Vardenyats pass closes and the southern road becomes slow and occasionally impossible. We build a winter version around Yerevan, Echmiadzin, Sevan, Dilijan and Tsaghkadzor, and we say plainly that it does not include Tatev.

Honest notes

Five monasteries in eight days is deliberate. If you ask us to add Goshavank, Hayravank, Sanahin and Odzun to this route we will do it, and we will tell you first that by day six they will have merged into one building in your memory. Almost everyone who takes our advice on this thanks us afterwards.

Yerevan runs late. Cafes open at ten or eleven, dinner is at nine, and the streets are busiest after dark. An eight o’clock start buys you an empty city and a tired afternoon. The only early start on this route is Khor Virap, and that is because Ararat clouds over by mid morning.

The drive south is long and it is the price of Tatev. Yerevan to Goris is four and a half to five hours on a two-lane mountain road with freight on it. There is no faster way and no flight.

Accommodation in Vayots Dzor and Syunik is not Yerevan. There are three or four genuinely good places and then a gap. On a comfortable budget expect a clean, simple, well-run hotel in the provinces and a very good one in the capital, and do not expect us to close that gap by charging you more, because in some of these towns the room does not exist.

The land border with Azerbaijan is closed and this route does not approach it. If you want both countries, they are two separate trips, each paired with Georgia.

Built by your named Armenia specialist, checked against notes our founder made in the field.

Related

• Armenia: the complete guide
• Wine and food in Armenia, 9 days
• Armenia and Georgia, 14 days