Yerevan Deluxe Hotel

... among them a pagan temple saved from old times, thousands of Christian churches, city fortress, old castles and much more. You can also find hundreds of thousands crosstones, which are also great manifestation of Armenian art and culture. Besides, it has one of the world’s biggest collections of ancient manuscripts dating from the 5th century – all of them are kept in an institute of ...

... matter how proud of it they may be. Most of what's here are derivations from Turkish or other Middle Eastern models. So I go to the one gen-u-ine hostel in town and book a dorm bed for the night, happy to punish myself for my excesses of the night before and ultimately balance out my payments. And it's good. Now I remember why I like hostels. It's not about the bucks; it's about the comradery and the cross-fire of information. That's what ...

... flown in from Georgia, the family arrived and we had breakfast at our `house'. I went back to the market on my own, the family followed, Marion and I had a day doing our own thing, as Marion came back with the family to spend time with Chloe and her sewing machine . I marketed again, then I went to CHURCH, that is the title of this Blog, modern in comparison, but so, so beautiful, people just ...

... no problem and then I wouldn't have to spend money on a taxi. It would have been a fun evening, but alas, all my things were lying in Vanadzor. However, I immensly enjoyed using their toilet, and outhouse precariously perched above the rushing river below. Normally I don't like the idea of toilet duties and a water source combines, but I had really to pee. So I just used the facilities, enjoyed the cool breeze against my skin, and was glad I hadn't brought a bathing suit....

... mainly it just shows how humongous and spread out the city is. It's sometimes hard to think of how big the city is, since the apartment blocks hug the hills, go over them, and then dip into the valley so you can only see that the city goes on for many hilltops... The fortress also gave a view of Mt. Ararat, which is actually in Turkey but can be clearly seen from Yerevan. This is the mountain the Noah's Ark is supposed to have rested on after the floor (all I ...

... bring many boxes, sacks or buckets from nearby market and stack the whole bus with it. The ride to Garni takes really a loong while. Garni temple is a classical example of a neat Roman temple (restored) and is about 400m from the main road. However, as always in these countries, the main attraction is the setting. The temple sits on a cliff over a really beautifully jagged canyon. It's really nice but I want to see also Geg********astery nearby before the last 6pm marshrutka. But I can ...

... from recession and war with neighboring Azerbaijan. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, these two neighbors began fighting, partly because the Soviets created boundaries irrespective of who lived where. Armenia now effectively controls 18 percent of Azerbaijan, with thousands of refugees on both sides. This is where the other son comes in, representing this other aspect of Armenia, a Christian people surrounded by Muslims with whom they have ...

... to discourage any religious activity; Garni was an exception as it was a favourite of a tsar's daughter. In this vein, the majority of the monasteries' frescoes had had white plaster put on top of them to hide the paintings. Given the Soviets' actions, Garni is one of the only classical sites in all of the Caucasus. After Garni, I visited Geg********astery, a church half-built into the rock. In one of ...

... stopp er i bae ekki langt fra landamaerunum, thetta er koparvinnslu svaedi og rustir af gomlum verksmidjuhusum sem na fyir marga ferkilometra eru ekki upporvandi sjon. Maturinn er samt agaetur og nu erum vid i adlogun fyrir heimamatinn tvi vid faum bara 3 retti en thad kvartar svo sem enginn undan tvi. Ad matnum loknum foru vid i okkar fyrstu klaustur og kirkjuskodun i thessu fjollotta landi og skodum Hagarty (laga stafsetningu sinna) sem er a ...

... a flat tyre/tire at 01.30 w/ freezing cold winds blowing constantly. But we switched the dead tyre, and got home around 03.30. We slept in today. We're thankful about that. Joke of the day. Todd saw the telephone polls w/o the wires. With the lights from the opposing traffics, they looked like crosses. He said, "Armenians must be very religious people, since they planted crosses every 10 yards." We said, "They're telephone poles, silly!" TK