Armenia is a country of day trips.
Almost everything worth seeing sits within a morning of Yerevan: a temple in a basalt gorge, a monastery under Ararat, a lake at 1,900 metres. Here is what each of those days is really like.
Six drives out of Yerevan, six different countries.
Ararat on one horizon, forest on another, a rock-cut monastery an hour up the Azat gorge. Each of these is a full day out of the capital, and each one wants a different kind of traveller.
The Armenian days more travellers take than any other.
Every review →Small-group runs out to Garni, Sevan and the Ararat plain, plus the lavash morning that ends half of them. These are the seats that go first in summer.
1
Day Trip to Armenia Including Homemade Lunch
Tbilisi to Armenia day trip: UNESCO monasteries, copper caves, MiG-21 museum, Soviet stops, and a homemade lunch.
From · $59
Read our review →
2
Garni, Symphony of Stones, Geghard, Lavash Baking
from $28
3
Lake Sevan (Sevanavank), Dilijan (Goshavank, Haghartsin)
from $32
4
Garni & Geghard Small-Group Day Trip with Lavash Baking
from $27
5
Khor Virap, Noravank and Birds’ Cave Trip with Wine Tasting
from $32
6
Garni, Geghard, Symphony of Stones & Lavash Baking
from $19
7
Khor Virap, Noravank, Areni Winery and Cave
from $37
8
Garni, Geghard, Symphony of Stones & Lavash Baking
from $23
Yerevan is older than Rome, and pink at six in the evening.
The city is cut from volcanic tuff, so the whole centre turns rose when the light drops. Walk the Cascade, eat your way round the Vernissage, then drink something distilled a tram ride away.
Khor Virap: the closest you get to Ararat.
All Ararat plain trips →
The monastery sits on a mound 30 km south of Yerevan with the closed Turkish border in front of it and the mountain filling the whole sky. Most trips carry on to the red gorge at Noravank and the vineyards around Areni.
Khor Virap, Noravank and the Amaghu gorge
Ararat first, while the morning haze is still off it, then two hours south to the cliff-walled gorge where Noravank glows the same red as the rock behind it.
Areni, and the cave that started it
The Areni-1 cave held a winepress six thousand years old. The valley never stopped: the cellars along the Arpa still press the same grape.
Echmiadzin and the ruins at Zvartnots
The Mother See is the oldest cathedral in the country and still the seat of the church. Zvartnots, a few fields away, fell in an earthquake and was left as a ring of carved columns.
Sevan is a sea at 1,900 metres.
The water covers a twentieth of Armenia and turns every shade of blue between morning and lunch. Climb the steps at Sevanavank for the view, eat the trout, and carry on into the Dilijan beech forest if the day is long enough.
All 100 Lake Sevan trips →
Three things Armenia has that nowhere else does.
Monasteries and mountain lakes exist across the Caucasus. A cliff of basalt organ pipes, bread baked on the wall of a clay pit and the longest cable car ever built belong to this country.
The Symphony of Stones
Cooling lava left a whole cliff of hexagonal basalt columns hanging over the Azat river, some of them twenty metres long and as regular as pipework. It is a twenty-minute walk down from the temple, the road is rough enough that most drivers stop at the top, and almost every Garni tour now includes it.
- 1Garni, Symphony of Stones, Geghard, Lavash Baking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,042 reviews
- 2Garni, Geghard, Symphony of Stones & Lavash Baking★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 758 reviews
- 3Garni, Geghard, Symphony of Stones & Lavash Baking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 589 reviews
Lavash in the Tonir
Lavash is rolled paper-thin, stretched over a cushion and slapped onto the inside wall of a tonir, a clay pit sunk into the floor. Thirty seconds later it comes off blistered. UNESCO lists the making of it as heritage; village families will sit you down and let you burn the first two.
- 1Garni, Symphony of Stones, Geghard, Lavash Baking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,042 reviews
- 2Garni & Geghard Small-Group Day Trip with Lavash Baking★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 881 reviews
- 3Garni, Geghard, Symphony of Stones & Lavash Baking★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 758 reviews
The Wings of Tatev
The tramway to Tatev runs 5.7 km across the Vorotan gorge in one span, which makes it the longest reversible cable car anywhere. The monastery at the far end kept a university in the fourteenth century. It is a 250 km drive each way from Yerevan, so it eats a whole day, and it is worth it.
- 1Khor Virap, Noravank, Tatev monasteries (wayback on Ropeway)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 506 reviews
- 2Tatev & Shaki Waterfall Guided Group Tour with Wine Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 266 reviews
- 3Tatev Day Trip with Shaki Waterfall & Wine Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 193 reviews
Armenia is cheap in a way that surprises people.
Every tour on the site, cheapest bands first. A seat in a minibus to Garni and back costs less than lunch in most capitals.
The shared minibus days: Garni, Sevan, Khor Virap, lavash baking, a tasting at the end.
Longer runs south, small groups, and the private car with a driver who stops where you ask.
Chartered days to Tatev and Lori, multi-day loops, and the flights over the Ararat plain.
Armenians were making wine before anyone wrote it down.
All wine tours →Khor Virap, Noravank, Jermuk, Areni wine tasting
Read our review →Khor Virap, Noravank & Birds’ Cave Day Trip with Wine Tasting
Read our review →In Armenia the map decides the day.
Everything is reachable from Yerevan and nothing is quick. The mountain roads are two lanes and slow, and the difference between a relaxed day and a nine-hour minibus is entirely a question of how far south you go.
- 01Khor Virap, Noravank, Tatev monasteries (wayback on Ropeway)About 250 km each way to the Vorotan gorge. Leave early; the cable car stops running in the late afternoon.
- 02Haghpat, Zarni-Parni Caves, Akhtala, Aramyants Castle, SanahinRoughly 185 km north into Lori, close enough to the Georgian border that some trips start in Tbilisi.
- 03Khor Virap, Noravank Monastery, Areni, JermukAround 170 km south-east. The Selim Pass road over the top is the scenic way and it shuts under snow.
- 04Lake Sevan (Sevanavank), Dilijan (Goshavank, Haghartsin)Only 65 km over the Sevan pass, which is why the lake pairs with Dilijan or Tsaghkadzor in a single day.
When the passes shut, Armenia moves indoors.
Snow closes the high roads from about November: the Selim Pass first, then the runs over Aragats. Nothing else stops. The tonir is lit all winter, the cellars are underground anyway, and Tsaghkadzor only makes sense once the snow is down.
Six days that cover the country.
By place — where the road goes
Yerevan344 tours
Khor Virap & Noravank107 tours- Garni & Geghard96 tours
Lake Sevan100 tours- Dilijan47 tours
Tatev45 tours
Haghpat & Sanahin16 tours
Mount Aragats19 tours- Everywhere in Armenia →
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