Master Class Hotel Yerevan

... 782b.c. by king Argishti the Second. Every September &#8211; October we celebrate the birthday of our city &#8211; at the moment it is 2790 years old.<br><br> However it&#8217;s impossible to say it looks ancient. New modern buildings, business centers, offices, cafes, restaurants and at the same time &#8211; tiny beautiful streets with full of trees, parks, small houses, churches built in the medieval ...

... Georgia is composed of valleys, pretty boring, and Armenia is composed of hills. The bit of urban landscape plopped down in the countryside of Armenia is not too inspiring, early Bolshevik standard issue, but the countryside itself is hypnotically appealing. It's the heart of springtime now and flowers are in full bloom, purple ones and yellow ones and some red ones that I especially like... poppies... zzzzz... We stop for lunch ...

... 20US, a very cheap form of seeing so much. Back to Yerevan for an Armenian Pizza, huge pizza base thing with poached eggs, delicious, and we also had a normal pizza as well, taxi back here to The Family, we are having fish for tea Tomorrow is another trip, and we have booked to go to the Brandy Factory as well. Thursday our last day, and we will be sad, Marion more so of course, as her family have so loved her being ...

... looked like all the other ones from around here, but were still interesting. They look dark and depressing, until you see on the walls the remnants of paintings and frescoes, which help you to imagine how colorful these churches once were. I love all the churches and monastaries here- it's like having a lot of big playgrounds, where the only limit is how scared you are of heights and rickety ladders. There's always a new doorway, new set of stairs, or new ...

... genocide is said to have happened from the end of the 1800s to the beginning of the 1920s, with the main atrocities in 1915 to the Armenians living in Turkey (at the time, Ottoman Empire). I use the term "is said to" because the genocide is still not recognized by Turkey. Outside the museum is a garden of trees planted by countries and public figures that recognize the genocide, including many representatives from America and Russia. Turkey and Armenia still ...

... where a service was just going on, even TV-broadcast. Chanting priests are accompanied by a choir - btw, each Eastern Orthodox priest must be able to sing well. But otherwise the church is uniteresting. I take a marshrutka to near Opera House where I find very recommendable Envoy Hostel (6400AMD w/internet&amp;breakfast). Since I have incredible amount of time, I take the advice of the Slovenians and visit Lake Sevan. In less than one hour a marshrutka to Sevan (actually it was heading ...

... the hazy pink volcanic cone of Mt. Ararat, where Noah's Ark landed after the flood thousands of years ago. This would be the last I saw of Mt. Ararat, who stayed hidden behind the white winter hazy horizon or clouds from then on. After Noah landed in the land of Mt. Ararat, legend says that he first tasted wine here, in the Armenian homeland. Greek historians and Syrian rulers admired the wines from the hundreds of grape varieties grown in the dry highland ...

Whoa!! Soviet block!! As at all airports, there are dodgy taxi touts, i.e. non-official taxi drivers trying to scam unsuspecting tourists. After wading through the sea of touts, I found a taxi and made my way into the city centre of Yerevan in his Russian made car. Going through the centre of the city, I passed through Republic Square which was formerly Lenin Square. During Soviet times, there was a statue ...

... skv. ollum reglum og afhenti taer i ohrjalegum steinsteypu skur vid veginn. Vid hin fengum ad draga okkar toskur afram yfir landamaerin og stilla teim upp vid rutuna sem beid eftir okkur og sidan var okkur meira ad segja leyft ad fara i te a moteli tarna vid landamaerin. Sem vid og gerdum og letum adra hafa ahyggur af okkar aritunum og stimplum. Vid drukkum kaffi og kok og te og bidum og bidum og tokum ollu af mikilli tolinmaedi. Thegar ...

... hymns, until this one drunk came over (according to our guide, that is) and started screaming at us in Armenian. Of course, having no idea of what he said, we had enough fun just seeing this wonderful, ancient place. After us, it was really exciting. We got back around 14.00 and had lunch together (amazing food, again!) and got ready for the 3 hour drive to this one city near the Georgian border. The long drive was actually uneventful, but ...