Day 5 - outing to Garni temple and Gerhard monastery

Our driver Constantine picked us up at 9.30 for a visit 30km outside Yerevan to, firstly, Garni, a 1st century AD Hellenic temple dedicated to the heathen sun god Mitra. It's spectacularly positioned on rock cliffs with the Avan Gorge below.  

Then on to Gerhard Monastery (hopefully the first monastery of several on this trip). Founded in 4th century AD, it comprises various cramped monastic cave cells and a 13thC church (with some beautiful external stone carvings,

and a natural skylight which today let in a strong shaft of light - the Armenians are very keen on striking a contrived exaggerated pose for any and all photos so were queuing up to adopt a saintly expression and cup hands to "catch" a sunbeam - hilarious).  No, we weren't tempted!

Constantine dropped us at the top of a hill, where sits the sadly wholly underwhelming monument to the 50th anniversary of "Soviet Armenia".  Lumps of concrete - practical, enduring, solid, but without much aesthetic charm!

 

Having walked back down the hill, we were pretty pooped and in need of a rest.  We searched out an art market in a park (where I chose a oil painting memento while Duncan tracked down the usual wee bottle of noxious local brew) and enjoyed a Kilikia Armenian beer.

Approaching dark, we headed to the main square, hopeful that the large fountain which we'd seen being cleaned and refilled yesterday might be in for some action.  Sure enough, to as eclectic a musical accompaniment as Queen, Bizet, Glen Miller, Star Wars, Prokofiev, the overture from The Sound of Music and unexpectedly Rule Britannia, the water-sound-light show kicked off and kept half of Yerevan entertained til 10pm sounded on the clock-tower. An unexpected treat.

Day 4 - Yerevan, Armenia

Had forgotten how I love opening the curtain and see we've woken up in a new place. The train track was a wee bit jolt-y in the night, but you get your train legs! Flashes of lightning over the distant hills last night but we woke to glorious sunshine and a snow-capped Mount Ararat.

Yerevan station is a mighty impressive building statement.

The star over Ararat (atop the spike) is a regular Armenian symbol, though the building shrieks Soviet! The very fine statue is David of Sasun, folk hero daredevil who drove out invading Arabs...

And on to the town itself (via another metro - 100 drams is again 14p for a single journey)

The city centre is very gracious with wide avenues and spacious squares (though spookily quiet after last night's Independence Day festivities -  took a while for the locals and traffic to wake up).

After checking in and a much-needed shower, a wander to orientate ourselves

Regrettably the Tsitsernakaberd Museum adjoining the Genocide Monument turned out (after we'd taxied up the hill) 

to be under re-construction and pretty much closed.  After making the best of a bad job with the interesting temporary exhibition and memorial itself (to c1.5m Armenians forcibly removed and exterminated from the Ottoman Empire and former eastern Armenia between 1913 and 1923), 

we went back out to find that our "I'll-wait-for-you-here" cabbie must have had a better offer.  We talked to an elderly Japanese couple (hoping to share their transport) but their taxi had done the same. It fell to Duncan to hike off down the hill to hail one, much to their gratitude (so our future welcome in Osaka is guaranteed!)

After lunch, the excellent National Museum, tracing Armenia's geological, theological and cultural history. An afternoon very well spent. 

 

The locals are certainly a fashion-conscious bunch so the early evening promenade is entertaining.  I'd expected a city much more dull and Soviet in feeling and look, but squint against the sun and this could almost be Italy or Spain.

But you can also look up to see another local gal, Mother Armenia, who is altogether less focused on fashion or welcome (apparently the 20m figure symbolises "peace through strength"[!], although she replaced a statue of local boy Stalin so an improvement of sorts...)

  

Day 3 : Tbilisi and midnight train FROM Georgia (to Armenia)

Well, maybe not midnight (it left bang on time at 20:20) but the Armenian border formalities, done with minimal fuss in our cabin, were there or thereabouts.

On Thursday, we pootled around town, seeing the more touristy areas than so far, with a fantastical clock-tower and statuary

 

And visited the Treasury at the National Museum 

(sadly the Soviet Occupation exhibition wasn't detailed in English too well, though pictures can tell a story well enough).

At the station, we met an American who's teaching English on a govt-funded project in a little village seven hours east of Tbilisi. Duncan asked him his home state. "Georgia" he said, adding (as if to dare us to think up a pun) "Some people over here get a kick out of hearing that."  (A few comparisons then (answers at the bottom) : which Georgia is bigger, has the higher population, has the larger GDP (OK, that one's a bit easy)).

And so onto the train to "EPEBAH" (Yerevan in Cyrillic, we'd luckily noted as it wasn't marked anywhere else!) and our "luxury" compartment.

No drama at the border, though there is always that little panicky voice in your head as your passport disappears with an unknown uniformed gent!

Answers : Georgia State : 59,435 sq miles, Georgia : 26,911 sq miles;
Georgia State : 9,992,167, Georgia : 4,484,000;
Georgia State : $35,979, Georgia : $6,000.

Day 2 : Tbilisi, Georgia

Today was about getting up for views. After wandering along the river and stopping at the newly-opened Peace Bridge

 Then (the cable-car being closed), we hauled ourselves up to the top of the hill to the fort

and close to the 20m tall aluminium statue of Mother Georgia, cradling a cup of wine to greet you and a sword in case she decides she doesn't like you after all.

Later we took the funicular for a princely 2 lari (70p) up on to the other (higher) hill in town for some even better views of town

Meanwhile, lunch had been a fortifying trout stuffed with walnuts for me while Duncan sampled the local delicacies of a trio of crab, mushroom and minced meat dumplings called khinkali, rather like dim sum (a snip at about 50p each) and a khachapuri, a very filling (and the "small" was dinner plate-sized - just as well the chap at our guesthouse forewarned us!) "cheese pie" (aka cheese-stuffed bread - think stuffed-crust pizza without the pizza  middle bit, and zero vegetables! D managed half...) To give you an idea of Tbilisi staples, here's the window of our local bakery.

Presently finishing off a nice local red on the guesthouse balcony under a pale blue sky.

Day 1 : Tbilisi, Georgia

A good night's sleep - that was much needed. Why is travelling so tiring when you're just sitting on your posterior, idly watching the Lego movie without sound?  We made up for it today though with some serious pavement pounding. 

 

First things first though : metro (with an Oystercard equivalent kindly supplied by our guesthouse host) negotiated from Liberty Square stop to the main station.  I'm not sure the Tbilisi tube escalators would pass EU health and safety as they fairly whizz up and down and are steeeep.  The tube trains on the other hand are top-notch: spacious and airy. And 0.5GEL (circa 17p) buys you a trip.  Live and learn, LUL...

At the train station, a speedy transaction to buy two berths on the overnight train down to Yerevan in Armenia on Thursday night.  So far, all very efficient so fingers crossed.

Then we headed around town, getting our bearings around the main (Liberty) square, where the gilded George and dragon replaced Lenin, 

theatre (sadly under renovation), 

 churches,

parliament, flying banners for the very recent independence day celebrations.

MAY+JUNE 2014 - 10 days in Georgia and Armenia - day zero

Day zero - Monday 26 May 2014 : London Gatwick to Tbilisi, Georgia

Turkish Airlines are the only folk who ply a decent trade from London so, via Istanbul, we flew 4067 km from Gatwick on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, arriving in Tbilisi after midnight on Tuesday morning (40 minute late as the a/c broke...though we're 3 hours ahead of BST so it's not too late in my head).  

In any event, the pre-booked taxi was duly waiting, and delivered us quickly at the SkadeVeli Guesthouse as planned.  "Madloba" (thank you) is as far as my Georgian stretches at present (probably goes down better than spaseeba, the only Russian I can manage) though I'm working on it.

The rough plan is to spend three days in and around Tbilisi, then catch an overnight train on Thursday to Yerevan in southern Armenia, have a couple of nights there before making our way slowly northwards back over the border to Tbilisi via a place called Dilijan (apparently the "Switzerland of Armenia") and a collection of UNESCO-heritage monasteries and churches set against the backdrop of the canyon of the Debed river. 

Added to all of which is that Georgia proclaims itself the cradle of wine-making (apparently archeologists have found evidence of wine-making in eastern Georgia dating back about 7000 years so they must know a thing or two) and Armenian spirits are world-famous (its national liquor tipple is cognac; Stalin sent cases to Churchill of "Ararat", which continues to be distilled at the Yerevan Brandy Company) so there is research to be done...