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...)