Tbilisi, Georgia

We had booked a private transfer from Yerevan to Tbilisi through the hotel. We’ve enjoyed the sightseeing + transfer combos, which we first did between the Baltic capitals. It’s good use of a transit day, plus we get to places that are otherwise a long day trip.

It’s five hours if you drive straight to Tbilisi; with our sightseeing we figure to get to our hotel in about nine hours.

We had the same driver who drove us to Goris. We left a few minutes after 9am under sunny skies, climbing towards Lake Sevan.

We were making good time until our driver tried to accelerate too quickly and did something to the car. The car worked fine at lower revs and speeds, it’s just when he tried to accelerate that it was wonky. I think the car runs on four cylinders for efficiency and only uses all six when needed and something sounded off on a cylinder.

Anyways, we arrived at Sevanavank (Sevana Monastery). It’s a spectacular setting with snow capped mountains in the background, surrounding Lake Sevan. It took us a few minutes to hike up the stairs, we were both winded at the top (possibly also due to the elevation at 1900m).

Took lots of pics. It’s not possible to enter the monastery; however it’s more the setting here that attracts the tourists. We walked up a little hill on a muddy path to get pics with sun in the right direction. In all we spent about 30 minutes here, a bit longer than I had expected.

We got back on the road. In Vanadzor, the only town of size along our trip, our driver stopped at a mechanic shop to have them look at the car. I was surprised that a) a mechanic was immediately available to look at the car and b) he had all the diagnostic tools for our vehicle make (Honda). The mechanic took out one of the fuel injectors, cleaned it and reinserted it. My earlier armchair analysis seemed accurate :) The mechanic was obviously confident about his fix cause he then replaced the engine cover without testing the engine.

We got back on the road, with our driver determined to make up for lost time.

We exited the highway and drove through the small town of Sarahart to get to the Sanahin Monastery Complex. It’s a UNESCO Heritage Site, and it’s amazing. It’s in an unrestored state, and we had each building to ourselves for the most part. My favourite room was the gavit, which was home to a couple pigeons. Every so often a pigeon would fly across the room from one pillar to another, the acoustics amplifying the sound of its wings flapping. It was super cool.

The Church of St. Amenaprkitch itself was also amazing, it’s still an active church.

Duly impressed, we got back on road. We had a quick stop at a convenience store where I bought some freshly made bread with a potato filling. This tided us over as we weren’t stopping for lunch.

Next up was Haghpat Monastery Complex, about 15km away. It’s actually part of the same UNESCO site as Sanahin.

Haghpat has some cool exterior pics, sitting in rolling hills above the valley. It’s in the same unrestored state as Sanahin. It was starting to feel colder, about 3C and a damp mist. Took another bunch of pics.

We also had Akhtala Monastery Fortress on our list for today, but we were getting out-monastery’d, and the access road was in poor condition. So we agreed with our driver to skip Akhtala and just head to Georgia.

The border crossing was really straightforward. We had to think about our previous land border crossing - it was in the Balkans in 2020!

First our driver stopped before the border to purchase auto and medical insurance for himself (I’m guessing a requirement for commercial drivers).

On the Armenia side, we walked through passport control to get an exit stamp while our driver drove through separately.

Then we took the bridge across the Debed River into Georgia. At the Georgian immigration, it was the same deal, we had to walk through, although this time with our luggage. Canadians don’t need a visa to enter Georgia; we just got a stamp and in we were! The customs folks just waved Heather through. I got caught up amidst some other people in immigration and put my luggage through the scanner for customs, although likely I could have just exited like Heather.

Another hour brought us into Tbilisi, a couple hours earlier than expected, about 5pm. Our driver had difficulty navigating the one-way streets in the historic centre, we finally asked him to drop us off about a 50m walk from our hotel.

We checked in and got a couple recommendations for dinner. We ate at Iasamani, a hip restaurant in a cool setting and good food too. We were lucky to get in as walk-ins. Cheese features prominently in Georgian food - I think every dish we ordered contained cheese, some more than others.

Overall a great transit day. The monasteries we saw earlier in the day were really cool, it’s worth coming to Armenia just to see them. There’s way more to see too. If you’re planning a trip and wondering where to go, I’d consider Armenia for sure.