Armenia: 8-Day First Christian Kingdom Small-Group Tour

Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion in 301, the first country to do so. Discover cliff-top monasteries, ancient manuscripts and views of Mount Ararat.
Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion in 301, the first country anywhere to do it, and has spent the seventeen centuries since being conquered by people who wanted it to stop. It did not. What survives is a landscape of monasteries built where they were hardest to reach (on cliff ledges, inside rock faces, at the heads of gorges) and a culture that carried its alphabet, its liturgy and its manuscripts through every occupation, largely by hiding them and by writing everything down. The national symbol is a mountain in another country. Ararat rises 5,137 metres directly across the closed Turkish border and dominates the view from Yerevan, from the vineyards, from half the churches in the country. Standing at Khor Virap (the monastery over the pit where Gregory the Illuminator was held for thirteen years before converting the king) with that snow cone filling the sky and an unreachable frontier in between, is the single most Armenian experience available. Eight days covers the country properly, because Armenia is small and dense. Yerevan, founded in 782 BC and older than Rome, holds a manuscript library that survived every attempt to burn it. South of it are Garni's Roman columns, Geghard cut into living rock, Noravank in a red gorge, and the Areni cave where archaeologists found a six-thousand-year-old winery and the world's oldest leather shoe. Further south still, Tatev hangs above the Vorotan canyon, reached by a cableway that holds a Guinness record. North, the road runs to Lake Sevan and the beech forests of Dilijan.

To guarantee availability book as soon as possible. Early booking is worth consideration especially if you planning the trip during high season like public holidays or weekends.

This excursion you can cancel with no cost up to 24 hours before the start of the trip. If you cancel it after 24 hours or not show up on the excursion you will still be charged the full price of the activity. Being late on pick-up or departure will be considered as not showing up.