YEREVAN · ARMENIA
Pink-stone city, mountain country, day trips in every direction.
Mount Ararat from Khor Virap, the longest aerial ropeway on earth, the world’s oldest winery, and the rock-cut monasteries Armenia is built around. All inside a single day’s drive of Republic Square.
Only in Armenia
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Monasteries, mountain views and wine tastings exist in plenty of countries. These three don’t. A ropeway record, a Stone-Age cellar, a basalt symphony in a gorge wall. Each is genuinely unique to Armenia and each is inside a day’s drive from Yerevan.
Over the gorge
Wings of Tatev
The longest reversible aerial ropeway on earth. Five and a half kilometres of cable carrying you above the Vorotan Gorge to a 9th-century monastery perched on a basalt cliff. Twelve minutes one way, no other route from this side of Armenia. The Guinness record is here, the view is here, the monastery is here.
- 1 Group Tour: Khor Virap, Noravank, Tatev monasteries (wayback on Ropeway)
- 2 Tatev & Shaki Waterfall Guided Group Tour with Wine Tasting
- 3 Group Tour: Hin Areni Winery, Tatev (wayback on Ropeway), Khndzoresk Caves
Underground
Areni-1, the world’s oldest winery
Six thousand one hundred years old. A cave near the village of Areni where archaeologists found the press, the fermentation vat and the drinking cup, all in one room. People were making wine here before the wheel reached Mesopotamia. The cave is open, the modern Areni cellars are a kilometre away, and the same grape is still in the ground out the front door.
- 1 Group tour: Khor Virap, Noravank, Areni Winery and Cave
- 2 Khor Virap, Noravank & Birds’ Cave Day Trip with Wine Tasting
- 3 Guided tour: Khor Virap, Noravank Monastery, Areni, Jermuk
Out of the gorge wall
The Symphony of Stones
Below Garni Temple the Azat River carved a basalt canyon and exposed the formation underneath: thousands of hexagonal stone columns hanging in vertical clusters off the gorge wall, like pipes of an organ. The formation occurs in a handful of places on earth. None of them are easier to walk into. The Symphony is a thirty-minute drive from Yerevan.
- 1 Group Tour: Garni, Symphony of Stones, Geghard, Lavash Baking
- 2 Yerevan: Garni, Geghard, Symphony of Stones & Lavash Baking
- 3 Private tour to Garni temple, Geghard Monastery, Symphony of Stones
The first day out
If you only do one day out of Yerevan.
A short list of the most-booked Armenian day trips. This is the one travellers keep coming back to first.
The classics
Yerevan’s Most Popular Day Tours
Khor Virap and Mount Ararat. Garni and Geghard. Lake Sevan, Tatev Ropeway, the Areni wine caves. The day trips Yerevan is built around.
Out of the capital
Pick a direction out of Yerevan.
Yerevan sits inside a small country with four very different days at its edges. South for Ararat and the Tatev ropeway. East for the pagan temple, the rock-cut monastery and Lake Sevan. North for forests and far-north UNESCO churches. West for Echmiadzin and the cathedrals.
By experience
Or pick what you came to see.
Garni’s columns at sunrise. Geghard carved into the cliff. The Ararat view from Khor Virap. Lake Sevan in clear morning light. Cellars in Areni, lavash from a hot tonir, brandy in Yerevan. Twelve doorways into the trip.
The classic pairing
Garni and Geghard, in that order.
A 1st-century pagan colonnade at Garni, a 4th-century church carved into the cliff at Geghard, and the Azat Gorge between them. The day trip more travellers book out of Yerevan than any other. Here are the three we’d pick first.
For the mountain
Ararat from Khor Virap.
The 7th-century monastery in front, the 5,137-metre mountain behind, the closed Turkish border in between. Three Khor Virap routes we’d send a first-time visitor to Armenia on.
From the world’s oldest cellars
Wine, brandy, lavash from the tonir.
Areni was making wine 6,100 years ago and the same vines are still there. Yerevan is the brandy capital of the Caucasus. Lavash is UNESCO. Three we keep coming back to when the topic is Armenian food and drink.
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