We had a leisurely breakfast before starting our day. First up were a couple attractions south of the hotel, the Armenian Market, and Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral.
The Armenian Market was in the former GUM Market building. (Most capitals in former Soviet republics had a central GUM department store, which stands for Glavny Universalny Magazin / Main Universal Store). Anyways it’s a really colourful market. There’s lots of dried fruits of all colours, big piles of lavash a couple feet high, a cheese section and a meat market. A cheese vendor offered us some stracciatella cheese which was super fresh. We also sampled a couple dried fruits from different vendors.
We walked back to Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral. The sun was in the wrong direction for pics, so we decided to come back later in the afternoon (it’s only a 10 minute walk from the hotel). We checked out inside, it’s spartan but nice.
Onto the National Puppet Theatre! We had bought tickets a couple days ago for The Dog and the Cat, based on a poem by Hovhannes Toumanian. We were there a few minutes early and browsed the collection of puppets on display in the lobby.
There 200-seat theatre was filled with groups of school kids. The kids did a cheer before the show started, maybe a countdown? The seats folded to different heights for kids and adults which was cool. The house lights went down and the show started!
The show was in Armenian but we got the gist of the plot. (I guess no different than going to an opera in Latin). It was in two 20-minute halves with kitschy organ music. We enjoyed the show, looks like the kids did too.
After the show we walked down the pedestrian Northern Av, and had lunch at Sorriso Café. The weather was so nice we actually ate outside on the patio!
We then walked over to the Modern Art Museum which we had scouted out on Monday. Even just looking in from the ticket entrance, it looked like we’d like the art. Sure enough, we really enjoyed it. Our favourite museum in Yerevan.
It was around 4pm by now so we walked back to Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral. The pics looked way better with the sun in the right direction.
Last on our agenda was souvenir shopping in Vernissage Market. We were looking for three items for our key shelf - a mouthpiece from a duduk (a double-reed wind instrument unique to Armenia), a mini stone khachkar, and a mini monastery. Found the first two. The folks at the duduk stall were really helpful, asking if the reed was for a musician or a souvenir. It was way more expensive for a real one, so it’s good they asked. The last item, a mini monastery, we had seen while browsing, but by the time we went back they had packed up for the day. We’ll catch them tomorrow.
It was a pretty full day! We ate at the hotel again. I tried a trout baked in lavash, and Heather had a squash / chickpea soup. Both were excellent. We wondered why we bothered to try a different restaurant yesterday :)
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