Grateful for the opportunity to hop skip and jump through Armenia with my cousin Christine prior to our Grand Georgia Traverse Bike Ride.
Some highlights
1. The “You like Armenian – I am not going to stamp your passport till you say you do” overnight private-berth train ride from Tbilisi.
Storks on the railway pylons with Mount Arrarat in the background
2. The views of Mt Ararat early morning from the train, one hour before pulling in to Yerevan’s Neo classical soviet train station.
3. Storks on top of the railway pylons.
4. Arriving at the Russian Built Yerevan train station the car park of which is a vegetable market at that time of morning.
5.Hotel Villa Delenda 22 Yeznik Koghabatsi St, Yerevan 375010, Armenia,
6. A joke about Armenian noses told by our walking tour guide Drako .
7.International sculptor series viewed from escalatot in The cascades (Cafesjian).
8. The sun symbolism.
9. Pomegranate juice and pomegranate art in the open air vernisage.
Pomegranates are everywhere in Yerevan.
10. Armenian Tolma (bulgur wrapped in lamb wrapped in a vine leaf at the Tavern Mtskheta Old Town restaurant next to Villa Delenda.
11. Scarlet and purple wild flowers along the road to Gyumri
12. The black Tufa stone city of Gyumri with its Tufa walled and balconied Villa Kars where we stayed and ate fresh cherries from the tree.
13. Feeling the gratitude of locals who appeared incredulous that tourists were coming to Gyumri – it was flattened in 1988 by an earthquake and renovations whilst slow – are slowly returning the city to its former black ash-stone glory.
This statue was is of a major American-Armenian donor who helped rebuild Gyumri after the earthquake – the locals were out for the unveiling.
14. Two of these incredulous locals had a Yerevan guest who’d travelled the two hours from Yerevan just to go to this restauant.
They serve fish.
Its the destination restaurant in Gyumri which we didn’t go to unfortunately.
We were on a fly by tour – a taxi hired to drive us through the mountains back to Tbilisi … 4-6 hours I think and a bargain USD 100.
These were some Churches we saw along the way – notice how the roofs of the temples look like Arrarat.
More Yerevan Photos
