There’s no good flight options to get from western Europe to Yerevan, the few flights that exist all arrive around 4am. It’s only 2h25 from Athens to Yerevan so it’s not really an overnight flight, just an inconvenient flight time.
We had a late checkout from our Athens hotel, so we did some more shopping for cooler weather clothes in the morning. We ate lunch at 72H again, this time in the restaurant. It was just as good as the previous day.
Got back to our hotel and packed up for the flight. It was just 100 CAD more to book business class, which meant we could have dinner at the lounge and hang out there until our flight at 23:50. Aegean Airlines has their premier lounge in Athens, it’s one of the nicer lounges we’ve been to. Not a bad place to spend a few hours waiting.
It was pretty easy to check in for the flight; the agents didn’t ask to see our Armenian visas which I found odd. The flight itself was good; we tried to nap unsuccessfully.
We arrived in Yerevan around 4:30am, two hours ahead of Athens. It’s the biggest time change we’ll have on this trip, the rest of it I’ve planned out so it’s just one hour at a time.
Another bonus of booking business class is that we were first in line for immigration. There were 20 booths, and agents at each. At 4:30am.
We had to go through immigration separately. I had no issues, the agent had more interest in my ancestry. Heather had a bit more scrutiny due to the Azerbaijan stamp in her passport. (I had to renew mine last year which cleared my stamp cache). The Armenian stamp is at the back of the passport, a vestigial practice from the Soviet days.
Our luggage came out quickly (yet another bonus of flying business). We wheeled our bags through the Nothing to Declare line and exited to the terminal. Quickly found our driver (prearranged through our hotel) and were whisked off to the hotel. The airport is close to the city centre, about 15 minutes by car. Total time from landing to the hotel might have been 45 minutes!
The nightwatch person at the front desk was in a deep sleep in his chair, and it took us a few minutes of loudly saying Hello and knocking on the desk to wake him up. He then woke the night manager who checked us in and we were off to our room.
We set our alarms for 9am, hoping to catch the end of breakfast. When it rang, we decided we could probably make it to lunch without eating and went back to bed.
…
We woke up around 11am, got ourselves together and went down for lunch. We had the lunch special of the day which was excellent - chicken soup, fresh breads, and a beef dish served on rice with a shredded carrot & black olive salad, followed by a muddy coffee.
After lunch we just went for a short walk to orient ourselves. Our hotel is right beside Vernissage Market, so we checked it out. It has really good arts and crafts, it might be the best market we’ve seen quality-wise. Men played backgammon throughout the market. Got some drams from an ATM and then went into the bank to change for small bills. Grabbed a coffee from the Coffee Time vending machine in the market to fit in. It wasn’t the best coffee ever, but when in Rome :)
Across the street is Khachkar Park. As its name suggests, it’s home to khachkars, a medieval Christian cross-stone. There’s a bunch in the park, almost like a museum, with placards of the history of each.
Right beside the park is Republic Square, a grand city square. It has a large fountain which is beautiful according to the Rough Guide, although it’s currently closed for the winter. On one side of the square is a building that houses both the History Museum of Armenia and National Gallery of Armenia. The panels hanging on the outside of the building gave a great summary of Armenian history starting from about 3000 BC.
Also I found interesting the public drinking fountains which are widely used - I’d say over 25% of folks passing by the fountain outside the museum had a sip.
I had no idea Armenia had such a rich history. Based on our little walk, we’re both excited about seeing more of Yerevan & Armenia over the next week.
The hotel’s owners actually got their start in the carpet industry, employing over 1,000 people. They have a gallery and store in the ground floor of the hotel. They also usually have a carpet master course on offer, except the loom is currently being refurbished :(
Got back to our room and planned out the stuff we wanted to see in Yerevan. There’s a puppet theatre which looks really cool and has midday shows.
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, it was pretty good. We tried one of their salad specials - cabbage, soft crumbly cheese, pomegranate and walnut salad, served warm. We also had their manti - in Armenia, it’s made in smaller nibble-sized pieces, a little different than what we had in Uzbekistan.
For those counting, Armenia is country 108 for me and 69 for Heather.
No comments:
Post a Comment