Romantic Armenia in 7 days: three bases, two wine estates, no rush

The structure is simple. Two nights in Yerevan in a suite in the centre, two in the forest above Dilijan, two at a wine estate in Vayots Dzor, and a last night back in the capital. Long lunches, cellar visits with the person who made the wine, one dawn start for Ararat and nothing else before ten.

Who it suits: couples, honeymoons and anniversaries. Nothing on it is physically demanding. One optional walk of ninety minutes.

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

Day by day

Day 1: Arrive Yerevan. Flights into Zvartnots land in the small hours, so we hold the room from the previous night and you go straight to bed. Private transfer, twenty-five minutes. Nothing scheduled until the evening, when there is a table booked in the old streets around Saryan and a bottle chosen for you rather than by you.

Day 2: Yerevan, late. The city does not start until ten and neither do you. A private guided walk in the late morning: the Cascade and its sculpture terraces, the Vernissage market if it is a weekend, the covered GUM market with the apricot sellers and the cheese. Lunch somewhere with a courtyard. Afternoon at the Matenadaran manuscript library or in the hammam at the hotel, depending on the two of you. Evening at the opera if there is something on, which there usually is and which costs a fraction of what it does at home, then dinner at eleven, which is normal here.

Day 3: Garni, Geghard, and north to Dilijan. East to the Hellenistic temple at Garni, standing alone above a gorge, and then Geghard, cut into the rock, where we arrange the singing in the chamber, which is the moment most couples remember from this trip. Lunch in a village house with lavash from the clay oven. Then north into the forest, about two and a half hours, and a house above Dilijan with a fireplace and a view down the valley. Two nights.

Day 4: Dilijan. Nothing scheduled. Walk the forest path to Parz Lake if you want to, or to the Haghartsin monastery in the trees, about ninety minutes each way. Otherwise stay put. Dinner is at the house, cooked by the family who run it, and it is the best meal on this itinerary.

Day 5: South to Vayots Dzor. Over the Vardenyats pass at about 7,900 feet (2,410 m) with the fourteenth-century caravanserai at the top, then down into the wine province, about four hours in total with stops. Check into a wine estate with rooms above the cellar. Afternoon tasting with the winemaker: Areni Noir, which is a genuinely distinctive red, and Voskehat, which is the white. Dinner on the terrace. Two nights.

Day 6: Noravank and the Areni cellars. Noravank in the morning, at the end of a narrow red gorge, and it is worth going early because the walls change colour with the sun. Then the Areni-1 cave, where a winemaking installation dated to about 4100 BC was excavated, which is the oldest known anywhere and is a strange thing to stand in with a glass in your hand later the same day. Long lunch at a second, smaller cellar. Afternoon free at the estate.

Day 7: Khor Virap and out. The one early start. Khor Virap sits on a mound in the vineyards of the Ararat valley with the closed Turkish border immediately behind it and Mount Ararat, 16,854 feet (5,137 m), filling the sky at dawn and gone into haze by ten. It is the single best hour on this itinerary and it costs you a 5am alarm once. Back to Yerevan for a late breakfast, a free afternoon and a day room until your flight.

What is included

Six nights of accommodation with breakfast, chosen for the room rather than the brand, private car with an English-speaking driver on all travel days, licensed English-speaking guides on three days, the arranged singing at Geghard, two winery visits with the winemaker and two long lunches, the village lavash lunch at Garni, a day room in Yerevan on the last day, all site entries, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Yerevan partner team.

What we would change, and when

• Want a third region? Add two days and the Tatev cable car in the south. We would rather add two days than compress this one, because the whole point of it is that it does not move.
• Travelling in winter? The Vardenyats pass closes and the wine estates in Vayots Dzor mostly shut. A winter version is Yerevan, Dilijan and Tsaghkadzor, and it is genuinely romantic in a different way, with snow and brandy and an empty city.
• Not interested in wine? Replace Vayots Dzor with two nights on Lake Sevan and a day on the Aragats road in summer. The estate nights are the reason this route is priced where it is, so this also lowers the cost.
• Want to combine with Georgia? Add five days over the land border for Tbilisi and Kakheti, which is another wine country and a completely different one. Our 14-day route.

Honest notes

There are two monasteries on this route and there are twenty in the country. That is on purpose. Seven days of medieval stone is a lot for anyone and it is a particularly poor use of a honeymoon.

The rooms we use in Vayots Dzor are the best in the province and they are not the best in the world. Armenia’s provincial hotel stock is thin: a handful of very good estates and small hotels, and then a steep drop. In Yerevan and Dilijan we can put you somewhere genuinely lovely. In the wine country we can put you somewhere characterful and well run, and we would rather set that expectation now.

Yerevan in July and August is hot, frequently over 100°F (38°C) in the afternoon. It is a dry heat and the evenings are pleasant, but a romantic lunch outdoors in August is not a romantic lunch. May, June, September and October are the months for this itinerary.

Ararat is not guaranteed. It clouds over most summer mornings by nine and it is out perhaps half the time in the shoulder seasons. That is the mountain, and we can only give you the best hour of the day at it.

The land border with Azerbaijan is closed. Armenia combines overland with Georgia and nothing else.

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

Related

• Armenia: the complete guide
• Boutique Armenia, 8 days
• Wine and food in Armenia, 9 days