For Spring Break this year (2004), we headed to Armenia.We
had a great time! We traveled with our friends Maureen and
Debbie. We visited Maureen's friend John, who is working
for US Aid
in Armenia.
Mike, an ex-CAC teacher who is now teaching in Spain, also
met us there.
We were lured to Armenia because we knew so little about
it. We had to look on the map to find it (between Turkey,
Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran) and had a tough time finding
the one guide book currently published for it (Bradt travel
series).
Armenia
was part of the old Soviet Union, and has been having a
tough time since that country disintegrated 15 years
ago. Many of it's 3.5 million citizens have immigrated and
most of the rest have stopped reproducing. The country side
is littered with huge, broken down factories. Otherwise,
however, the country side is beautiful; 80% of the country
is covered by
mountains.
The
capital,
Yerevan, has excellent views of Mt Ararat of Noah's Ark fame.
Outside
Yerevan, hotels and restaurants were few and far between.
We stayed mostly in "home stays". Other
than the landscape, the major attractions of Armenia are
hundreds of very old monasteries. Armenia was the first country
to adopt Christianity as a state religion (around 300AD),
so many of it's churches are very old indeed. |