Advertisement
It's a long journey on an uncomfortable minibus with no air-con with a driver who is ken to get to his destination as quickly as possible,a a total of 6 hours including a border crossing that took one and a half hours, we arrived just behind a big tour bus.
Immediate impressions of Yerevan are positive, a quiet city that’s easy to walk around. Staying quite close to Republic Square Walked in the centre of the city. From here it's easy to walk to the main sights, our first afternoon that included to the Cascades park which is a big staircase with art installations set up by the philanthropist Cafesjian. From the staircase we could just see Mt Ararat in the background on the Turkish border.
The next day we did walking tour around the city which did not change our positive impression from yesterday. Started the day with a walk over to GUM market, nothing like the the Moscow version, this is a big vegetable market. The reason to go is the artistic way the stall holders arrange their produce. Pyramids of carefully stacked fruit and veg with colours and shapes considered carefully. The local delicacy
if churchkhela which are walnuts strung together then coated in a grape juice based paste and dried.
From there, via a coffee shop, we returned to the Cascades and walked all the way to the top. Good views, but not worth going to the statue at the very top which looks down on a derelict large hole in the ground.
The afternoon was spent at the History Museum. The first gallery in the visit (3rd floor), is excellent, amazing number of incredibly well preserved bronze age artifacts. The history of Armenia is highly complex, hard for an outsider to get their head around. The section on the genocide of 1915 was very moving.
In the evening we went to Republic Square where there’s n enjoyable musical fountain display ( not sure start and end times but we were there from 9pm for 30 mins). The most surprising thing about our evening stroll was how busy Yerevan was, far more people out and about, restaurants packed, maybe because it was Friday evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.149s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 15; qc: 66; dbt: 0.0897s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Neil Collie
non-member comment
Caucasus
Hi Amanda, we were obviously in the region around the same time - surprising we didn't run into each other! I've enjoyed reading your blogs. You are doing it quite different that me, travelling independently by public transport whereas I was on a comfortable tour, but there again, I'm probably old enough to be your father. My style of writing blogs is a bit different from yours, but if you are interested to read them, I'm under 'Nomad-Old-Farts'. If not, I'm sure you'll recognise and enjoy some of my pics. Cheers, Neil