Armenia and Why You Should Definitely Put It On Your Bucket List, Part 2

*This Post originally appeared on my old lifestyle blog Style and Chocolates, a couple of years ago. This blog post has a few modifications to the text and is being transferred here permanently.

I went to Armenia on a family trip and I loved it so much! I already wrote part one of this trip but I felt like one post wasn't enough. I took over two thousand photos and had the hardest time picking out the ones to feature here. This country is truly amazing and even now, I still cannot get over it. I feel like it is such an underappreciated destination and I hope that people reading this and all my other Armenia posts will be inspired to visit!

The Church dedicated to St. Mary, right behind the Amberd fortress.

The roaring river in front of the Hotel in Alaverdi.

The lovely Avan Dzoraget Hotel in Alaverdi

For our trip, we stayed mostly at the country's capital, Yerevan. Armenia is a pretty small country so we could just drive out to see all the points of interest for the day then go back home to Yerevan each night. There was just one night we spent out of Yerevan and this was in a mining town called Alaverdi. Alaverdi is located in the Lori Province, and is pretty close to the border of Georgia. We stayed at the most charming hotel, Avan Dzoraget which part of the Tufenkian hotel chains in Armenia. The hotel was situated by a roaring river. It was such a pretty and rustic place to stay!

Our lovely hotel in Alaverdi had a bit of an old world and rustic feel.

The gorgeous courtyard in our hotel at Alaverdi

Pretty purple flowers add drama to the courtyard at the hotel.

Alaverdi was also the closest point to visit two UNESCO world heritage sites, the Sanahin and Haghpat Monasteries. I will be covering those two some more in part three of my Armenia posts.

I had mentioned in part one that Armenia had a LOT of monasteries because Christianity is the dominant religion here. It is also the very first country in the world to adopt it as a state religion. Asides from all the monastery hopping though, we also visited some non-Christian sites like the Amberd Fortress, Garni which is a rare pre-Christian pagan temple and also the Yerevan Cascade, which is Armenia's modern museum. We also drove through gorgeous Armenian country sides and visited  Ashtarak, the Armenian alphabet Park.

Read on and see all captions of the photos to know more about the sites that we visited.

The ruins of Amberd Fortress.

                               

Amberd Fortress with the Church dedicated to St. Mary behind.

Armenian countryside with lots of sheep.

Gorgeous countryside with snowy peaks concealed by clouds.

Another pretty sight by the side of the road.

                                   

Ashtarak - the Armenian Alphabet Park

Giant letters of the Armenian Alphabet in Ashtarak.

The Cascade - A giant staircase

On every floor of the Cascade there are fountains and modern art installations.

  

Cool Modern Art Installations in one of the floors.

A view of Yerevan from the top of the Cascade.

Pretty colored glass installations in one of the floors in the Yerevan Cascade.

A close-up of the Yerevan cascade - A huge staircase that houses the largest collection of modern art in Armenia.

A sunken head.

A man running.

View of Yerevan.

Garni - a rare pre-christian pagan temple.

A close-up of the columns of the Garni temple.

Grand columns at the Garni Temple.

Another view of the Garni Temple. It reminded me so much of the Acropolis in Greece!

I'm still not done with my Armenia posts. I have lots more photos from the trip that I've yet to post here. I will be continuing  with a part three and also a food feature. I absolutely LOVED the food in Armenia and I feel it deserves it’s very own post! Hope you guys have enjoyed reading this one. If you are looking for a place to visit that's unusual and really pretty, then I hope you give this stunning country a try! You won't regret it! And if you guys aren't bored yet, then see you for part three next time!

All photos in this post are personal photos of nofiltertravel.blogspot.com. If you want to use them or borrow them in any way, please contact me first! My email add: nofiltertravel@gmail.com. If you can't be bothered to send me an email and still want to use my photos, then please do credit them and link back to this blog. Thanks!