Yerevan
While it’s the undeniable cultural, economic and political heart of the nation, Yerevan can at times feel like a city on permanent holiday.
While it’s the undeniable cultural, economic and political heart of the nation, Yerevan can at times feel like a city on permanent holiday.
Lining the banks of the Pambak River, Vanadzor, formerly Kirovakan, is a post-industrial Soviet city and administrative centre for the Lori region.
An overgrown country town built on twisting lanes that wind into the hills, Yeghegnadzor (yeh-heg-nadzor) is the peaceful administrative centre of Vayots Dzor.
The endlessly winding roads that leap through the gorges over the mountains of Syunik come to a major junction at Goris, making this an inevitable stop between Yerevan, Stepanakert and the Iranian border.
Built on a fairy-tale natural fortress of rock on the edge of the Vorotan Canyon, Tatev is as jaw-dropping as any of the World Heritage–listed churches in Lori.
Back when Armenia was part of the USSR Soviet athletes used to come to this tiny village to train for the winter Olympics and other sport competitions.
Strategic Meghri, Armenia’s toehold on Iran, is worth exploring for its fine stone houses.
Sisian sits on a high plateau where it snows as late as March or April, and the autumn ends early here too.
This small resort town, 2080m above sea level on the upper Arpa River, was popular in the USSR as a vacation spot for mineral-water treatments and hot springs, some of them very hot.
Kapan is Armenia’s version of Pittsburgh or Kalgoorlie, a town built for the mining industry that surrounds it.
Moss-covered Sanahin is a fascinatingly detailed church and monastery complex, packed with ancient graves, darkened chapels and medieval gallery schools (study halls where pupils sat on benches on either side of a corridor).
The quiet, conservative mining town of Alaverdi is tucked into a bend in the canyon, with rows of apartment blocks and village houses cut into strata by the highway and the railway line.
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