My Caucasus Adventure

I’d almost forgotten the joys of the long-haul flight. The lack of sleep (including a screaming baby), trying to find the gate for your connecting flight and then worrying about your bag arriving. I got no sleep but I did catch my connection and I actually saw my bag being put onto the plane – all good.

Yerevan, the ‘Pink City’. Many of the buildings here are faced with pink stone because they don’t make bricks in Armenia. The architecture is quite varied, much of it on a grand scale. Republic Square is surrounded by spectacular buildings with a huge fountain in the centre. More on that later.

English isn’t widely spoken so visiting a supermarket or eating in a restaurant is interesting. Menus and museums seem to have English translations because I have no chance of even guessing the words! The rest you just make up as you go along.

Instead of denominations of 1, 5, 10 and 20 it’s 1000, 5000, 10000 and 20000. Try doing that calculation in your head. I never was good at maths. You have to be careful that you don’t give someone a 10000 dram note instead of 1000 especially when you’ve had no sleep. By our standards things are reasonably priced but I don’t know what people earn here. Eating out is certainly cheaper than Sydney.

The city is full of museums, art galleries and music venues – you could easily spend a week just visiting those. There are lots of people here – it’s summer and they are all on holidays. Oh, and it’s stinking hot – by early evening it’s 34o. I’ve been told that it’s been like this for last 2 or 3 years. I know the rest of Europe is sweltering too.

The city is fabulous to walk around – street art, big trees, wide avenues. A must see is the evening light show in the fountain in Republic Square. Huge crowds wait for the clock in the tower to chime 9 and then it starts running for about half an hour. Definitely worth taking a look.Read more