Armenia by car

When to go

May to October. Armenia is a high country, and most of this route runs between 1,000 and 2,400 metres: in winter the Vorotan and Selim passes on the way south and east are snowbound, and chains may be required. July and August are very hot in Yerevan and the Ararat valley, often near forty degrees, while Lake Sevan and Dilijan stay cool. Late September and October bring the grape harvest in Areni and the autumn colours of the Dilijan forests.

The stops

Interactive map of the route on our site ›

1. Yerevan2 nights

   The capital is older than Rome: an inscription of King Argishti I found on the hill of Erebuni records the founding of a fortress there in 782 before the common era. The centre was rebuilt in pink tuff stone in the Soviet years, and the Matenadaran on the hill holds one of the great collections of ancient manuscripts in the world.

2. Garni Templestop on the way

   A Greek-style temple of the first century on a cliff over the Azat gorge, the only standing pagan temple of the classical world in the former Soviet Union. It fell in the earthquake of 1679 and was put back together from its own stones in the 1970s; below it, the gorge walls are columns of basalt called the Symphony of Stones.

3. Geghard Monasterystop on the way

   A thirteenth-century monastery partly carved into the mountain, with churches cut out of the living rock behind the main one. Its name means spear, after the lance said to have pierced Jesus, kept here for centuries and now in Etchmiadzin; with the upper Azat valley it is a World Heritage site.

4. Khor Virapstop on the way

   The monastery stands over the pit where, by tradition, King Tiridates III kept Gregory the Illuminator for thirteen years. When Gregory came out he converted the king, and Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity, by the traditional date in 301; you can climb down into the pit, and Ararat rises just across the border.

5. Areni-1 Cavestop on the way

   In this cave archaeologists found a leather shoe some 5,500 years old, the oldest known in the world, and a winery of about 6,100 years ago with a press and storage jars. The village of Areni still makes wine from its own grape, and its wineries line the road.

6. Noravankstop on the way

   A thirteenth-century monastery at the head of a narrow red-rock gorge. Its two-storey church of the Holy Mother of God, finished in 1339, has steps cut into the façade that climb to the upper chapel; it was the last work of the master builder and carver Momik.

7. Yeghegnadzorone night

   The small capital of Vayots Dzor, the wine province, and the night between the monasteries of the south. In the village of Yeghegis nearby is a medieval Jewish cemetery with tombstones inscribed in Hebrew and Aramaic, from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the only one of its kind found in Armenia.

8. Zorats Karerstop on the way

   Some two hundred standing stones on a windy plateau near Sisian, many with a round hole bored near the top. They are prehistoric and probably mark a burial ground; the claim that they were an observatory is popular but disputed.

9. Wings of Tatevstop on the way

   A ninth-century monastery on the edge of the Vorotan gorge, which in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was one of the great centres of learning of medieval Armenia. The Wings of Tatev cable car, opened in 2010, flies to it from Halidzor across the gorge; at 5.7 kilometres it entered the Guinness book as the longest reversible cable car in the world.

10. Gorisone night

    A stone town in a valley of tall rock pinnacles, laid out on a grid in the nineteenth century and known for its fruit brandies. Across the hills is Old Khndzoresk, a village of cave houses lived in until the 1950s, reached by a swinging footbridge over the gorge.

11. Old Khndzoreskstop on the way

    A village of houses dug into the soft rock of a gorge, which had thousands of people at the start of the twentieth century and was emptied in the 1950s for the new village on the plateau. A swinging footbridge over the gorge leads to it.

12. Shaki Waterfallstop on the way

    A waterfall of about eighteen metres falling over a wall of basalt columns near Sisian. Local legend says it is named after a girl, Shake, who threw herself from the cliff rather than be taken by a foreign king.

13. Yeghegnadzorone night

    Back for a second night in the wine valley, so that tomorrow’s road north over the Selim pass starts short. In the evening try the local areni, the red wine named after its grape and village, in the wineries of the town and of Areni down the road.

14. Yeghegis Jewish Cemeterystop on the way

    On the bank of the river by the village of Yeghegis lie medieval Jewish tombstones with inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic, the dated ones from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were found in the 1990s and studied by scholars from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and they are almost all that is known of the Jewish community that lived here.

15. Selim Caravanseraistop on the way

    A stone inn for the caravans of the Silk Road at about 2,400 metres on the Vardenyats pass, built in 1332 by the Orbelian princes. It has an inscription in Arabic over the door and one in Armenian inside, and the long dark hall, lit through holes in the roof, held the travellers and their animals together.

16. Noratusstop on the way

    A medieval cemetery on the shore of Lake Sevan with the largest field of khachkars, carved cross-stones, in Armenia, some nine hundred of them, the oldest from about the tenth century.

17. Sevanone night

    Lake Sevan lies at about 1,900 metres and is one of the largest high-altitude freshwater lakes in the world. Its level was lowered by some twenty metres in the Soviet years to feed power stations and fields, and that is how the island of the Sevanavank monastery, of 874, became a peninsula.

18. Sevanavankstop on the way

    Two dark stone churches of 874 on the peninsula over the lake, built by Princess Mariam, a daughter of the first Bagratid king. Monks who had broken the rules were once sent here, and the stairs to the top give the view of the whole lake.

19. Dilijanstop on the way

    A resort town in forested mountains that Armenians call their Switzerland, where Soviet composers and writers came to rest. Sharambeyan Street, a short lane of restored nineteenth-century houses with carved wooden balconies, is the old heart of the town.

20. Haghpat Monasterystop on the way

    Founded in the tenth century under the Bagratid kings, Haghpat and its neighbour Sanahin were great monastic schools, and together they are a World Heritage site. Its khachkar of the Holy Redeemer, carved in 1273, is one of the finest cross-stones in Armenia.

21. Sanahin Monasterystop on the way

    A tenth-century monastery and school on the plateau above Alaverdi, with dark galleries and a library of 1063. Below it in the village is the museum of the Mikoyan brothers: Artem, born here, designed the MiG fighters, and one stands in the garden.

22. Alaverdione night

    A copper-smelting town at the bottom of the Debed canyon, plain itself but the base for the two monasteries on the plateaus above it. A stone bridge over the river was built in 1192 and is still crossed on foot.

23. Spitakstop on the way

    On 7 December 1988 an earthquake destroyed this town and much of northern Armenia, and some 25,000 people died. A memorial to the dead stands in the town.

24. Armenian Alphabet Monumentstop on the way

    Giant stone letters of the Armenian alphabet stand on the slope of Mount Aragats beside the road, put up in 2005 for the 1,600th anniversary of the alphabet. Mesrop Mashtots created it in about 405 so that the Bible could be translated into Armenian.

25. Yerevanone night

    Back in the capital for the last night, close to the airport. From the top of the Cascade, the stairway of the art centre above the city, Ararat stands over Yerevan on a clear evening; the mountain is across the closed border, in Turkey.

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What it costs

Eighty dollars a night is the room. The car and the fuel are yours, paid in dram, and Armenia has no toll roads. Fuel is cheaper than in Israel. Parking in central Yerevan is paid; at the monasteries it is free, though people sell candles and sweet gata bread at the gate. The one ticket worth budgeting is the Wings of Tatev cable car.

What to know

Three things. One: the roads. The main highways are mostly good, but side roads have deep potholes, cattle and sheep cross without warning, and drivers overtake on bends; drive in daylight and slower than the locals. Two: the borders. Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey are closed, and in the east and south some roads run close to the Azerbaijani line; stay on the route given here, and take the road to Tatev and Goris through Sisian, not any shortcut. Three: the rental car stays in Armenia. Most companies do not allow it into Georgia, so if you fly out of Tbilisi, return the car in Yerevan.

Roads, tolls and rules

Armenia drives on the right. The M2 runs south from Yerevan through the Ararat valley and over the passes to Goris; the M4 climbs north-east to Lake Sevan and through the tunnel to Dilijan, and the road down the Debed canyon follows the river and the old railway to the Georgian border. An hour on the map is often an hour and a half. Fill up in the towns; between them there are many gas stations for cars running on compressed gas, and fewer that sell petrol.

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