Armenia
About Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital of Armenia, a city of pink and ochre volcanic stone on a plain under Mount Ararat, whose snowy double cone rises across the Turkish border. It began as the fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC, older than Rome.
Most of what you see was built in the 20th century: the arcades of Republic Square, the giant stairway of the Cascade with its sculpture garden and view of Ararat, the Matenadaran with its illuminated manuscripts, and on a hill the genocide memorial and museum. At weekends the Vernissage flea market sells carpets, Soviet badges and woodwork.
It's a safe, walkable and cheap capital that lives outdoors on summer evenings, in cafés, wine bars and around the singing fountains; summers are hot and dry, and autumn is harvest time. It is also the base for day trips across the country, with most monasteries an hour or two away.
Eat khorovats, Armenian barbecue, dolma, lavash baked on the wall of a clay tonir and fresh apricots, and try Armenian brandy and the wines of Areni.
Get to Yerevan
Round trip from Prague, any dates in November 2026.
Day trips from Yerevan
- Half day
Etchmiadzin
~30 min
The spiritual centre of the Armenian Church: a cathedral first built in the early 4th century, among the oldest in the world, and on the way the ruins of the round 7th-century cathedral of Zvartnots.
- Half day
Garni & Geghard
~40 minA Greco-Roman temple of the 1st century on a cliff above a gorge of basalt columns, and further up the valley Geghard, a monastery carved into the rock face, its chapels lit through holes in the stone.
- Day trip
Lake Sevan
~1 hA vast alpine lake at 1,900 m and a cool escape from Yerevan's summer heat, with the 9th-century churches of Sevanavank on a peninsula above the water and trout from the lake on the menu.
- Day trip
Aragats
~1 h 30 minArmenia's highest mountain, an old volcano of 4,090 m: a road climbs to Kari Lake at 3,200 m for walks among snowfields in midsummer, with the medieval fortress of Amberd on its slopes.
- Day trip
Khor Virap & Noravank
~1 h 45 minThe monastery closest to Mount Ararat, where the saint who converted Armenia was kept in a pit for thirteen years, and further south Noravank, a 13th-century monastery at the end of a narrow red-rock gorge, past the wine village of Areni.
About Armenia
Monasteries under Ararat
Medieval monasteries cut into gorges and set on hilltops, a pink-stone capital with Mount Ararat on its skyline, and an alpine lake two thousand metres up.
Explore ArmeniaRegions, highlights and when to go