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Travels in Armenia day 3 – Mount Aragat

armenia
25th June 2019
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Travels in Armenia day 3 – Mount Aragat

I was on a small group tour of Armenia and Georgia with Explore. It was excellent with the best tour guide I have had and who became a very good friend

So today it was a hike in the Aragat mountain range to Anberd the remains of a medieval fortress. There is still snow on some of the highest peaks. The drive and hike were simply beautiful. There were wild flowers everywhere.

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The tranquility and peace were shattered by the arrival of a school party. We were much more of an attraction than the fortress for pupils and teachers and I’m on numerous selfies
We learnt about the, Ukrainian alphabet. So someone was, funded for 10 years to travel the world researching other alphabets and come up with one for Armenia and then be hailed a hero. It’s a good job if you can get it! Maybe it needs updating! I’d apply for the job. The characters are very pretty and it’s a phonetic language. You can see the influences from other alphabets. The stained glass shows the letters.
Lunch was at the home of a local family. It was a very tranquil spot with fruit trees and beautiful gardens growning all kinds of produce, a lot of which we got to sample for lunch. It was so fresh and full of flavour. This from a committed carnivore who normally shuns vegetables and salad. The tomatoes here are so full of flavour they remind me of my childhood.
Next stop was the genocide museum and monument. It was harrowing. I knew a little about it before, the scale of the atrocity was huge. 1 and a half million people we’re massacred. The Turks won’t take responsibility or apologise for what happened. This was complete genocide and an attempt to obliterate a race from a particular country. What I didn’t know was the barbarity, the torture, the burning alive, mutilation, the rapes, kidnapping children. It was truly horrific. The photographs were so moving. The most heart wrenching was the picture of an old man holding his son’s skull. Everyone should go to museums like this to see the brutality and inhumanity. There was an old woman picking weeds growing in between the stone zmskabs leading to the monument. I couldn’t help but wonder what her story was.
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Next we visited the Armenian manuscript museum. By then I’d lost the will to live. Apologies to anyone who finds this fascinating but tiredness is getting the better of me.
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Good food, wine and an hour over a double apple shisha was a relaxing way to end a day.
Book your tour with Explore.

See my other posts on:

Georgia

Armenia

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