stones and tiles

Arriving in Yerevan we encountered a hitch as the apartment we had booked for 4 days couldn't be found!

We found the street and the number - but unfortunately the building number covered the entire city block. Then the phone number attached to the accommodation was not working. As we were not carrying a phone (several concerned locals had tried ringing the apartment for us) Paul sat with (on) our luggage while I went off in search of internet to email the booking agency.

I found a cafe and ordered a Sprite so I could use their internet. I sent off several terse emails to say we were waiting on the street somewhere near where we thought the room would be.

About an hour later while I was in the back lane trying to work out where this apartment could be a woman approached me an asked if I was Terry. She said she received a phone call and would take us to another apartment.

Sounding suspicious we had few options so we agreed. It turned out we were given another really good apartment not far away and this woman turned out to work for an agency that the original apartment owner had called as as it turned out our apartment (apparently) had water issues and couldn't be used.

By this time it was late afternoon and still around the high 30's temperature wise.

So we found a supermarket and bought a few things for breakfast and then found a restaurant for dinner.

Yerevan was to be our base from where we were taking day trips to various places in the country.

We were stymied several times in the city as several places we wanted to see were shut - such as the Cafesjian Centre for the Arts and the Museum of Modern Art. We did get to the Museum of Art and the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, usually referred to as the Matenadaran.

We also had a look at the Katoghike Holy Mother of God Church: 

and the only mosque in the entire country:

The Matenadaran:

The following day we had a car and driver take us to lake Sevan and several monasteries and a wonderful old cemetery called Noratus which contained more than 800 stone crosses called khachkars some of which date back to the 10th Century.

Fruit stalls along the road to Sevan.

Sevanavank Monsatery:

Heyravank Monastery:

Noratus Cemetery: