Church and Monastery Fatigue in Armenia – Echmiadzin, Khor Virap, and Noravank

Day 2 of our Armenian architecture death march leisurely exploration was actually our third day in Armenia.  Our second day we kept to ourselves, and explored Yerevan on foot and via its super-awesome, and super-secret metro.  We wanted to love Yerevan, but the feeling wasn’t super mutual – so Yerevan was a rough go for us.  But that’s a story for another time.

Right now, though, it’s time to get pumped up – it’s time for more churches!  Boom, bam, pow!  Church time!

Day 2: Echmiadzin, Pokr Vedi, Areni

Mood: Excited to leave Yerevan.  High on Russian, possibly expired Theraflu.  Didn’t they recall this stuff in the states?  Three worried/anxious emoji faces.

Church 1: St. Hripsime

It was empty, and there was a really fun crypt with a very 70s picture of the Virgin Mary in it.  Fun old Armenian women looking after things.  Souvenir shop closed – is everyone out to get us??  3/5

Church 2: Echmiadzin Cathedral

It was under construction and the whole complex (which is essentially like the Vatican for the Armenian Orthodox church) seemed oddly modern and rather dirty.  I had an exchange with a man (in Armenian, thank you very much) about Armenians in America (there are many), the Turks (he didn’t like them), and Armenian food (we should eat more of it, apparently).  Their gift shop was open, and I bought a nice canvas bag that I use to take my lunch to work in.  5/5

Church 3: St. Gayane

There was a dead cat in the gutter right outside this one.  That’s pretty much all I have to say about it.  I don’t expect every place I travel to be super developed or clean, etc. – but Echmiadzin outside the grounds of Hripsime and the Armenian Vatican was just a sad place.  1/5

Monastery 1: Khor Virap

Would have had awesome views of Mt. Ararat had it been any other day.  But there was a great attack kitty on the premises, as well as fun pits that were once used to house persecuted Christians!  Souvenir shop closed.  Outside the actual monastery complex was a cluster of really fun picnic shelters that looked like they belonged in Chris Hedwig’s seminal work on Soviet Bus Stops. 4/5

Monastery 2: Noravank

You better work, Noravank.  Noravank was one of my absolute favorites, despite being really sick of churches at this point.  It was built deep in a canyon, and was probably best preserved of all the monasteries we saw (maybe a close second to Akhtala).  We found out later that the bell tower is super authentic – it dates back to 1997!  Either way, it was beautiful, and we went from there to a winery (Megan Starr has written a great post on the Areni Winery experience) that wasn’t so much of a winery as a future setting for Hostel, Part 4 or whichever iteration of the franchise they’re on now.  Huge success! 4.5/5

From there it was back to Yerevan – we organized our tour through Envoy Hostel – this was their “Englightened Armenia” tour.  As we were in the lowest of low tourist season in Armenia, we were the only people on the tour, so we had our car and driver, Daniel, all to ourselves.

And, while we were getting sick on this, our penultimate day in Armenia, we had high hopes for the following day, which would prove more difficult as our sicknesses were exacerbated by expired drugs and severe winds and cold.