Yerevan Guide

Yerevan

Overview

The capital of Armenia is the typical Soviet city with long and wide avenues, concrete buildings and no charm at all. Nothing special, but if you have to be there for a couple of days, you can visit the market, the bazaar, the blue mosque and climb to the top of tha Cascades for some views of the city. Other than that, Yerevan is not worth a visit.

Sightseeing

Yerevan lacks sights. It even lacks an old town because it was totally destroyed and it was rebuilt according to the “beautiful” Soviet standards.

Anyway, a visit to the Armenian Covered Market is advisable, you’ll see mainly food, including whole-sized pigs and plenty of Armenian cakes. Near the Market you have the Cathedral, a huge building a bit similar to the one in Tbilisi, but nothing special.

The open Bazaar is also worth a visit and you can find souvenirs there. From there you can get to the Republic Square, a huge Soviet square and to the Opera.

Also make sure to go to the Cascades, an enormous monument consisting on different levels which you can climb through the stairs and have views over Yerevan. There are also some sculptures of famous artists, such as Botero.

But probably the most beautiful sight of Yerevan is the Blue Mosque. Blue because of its dome, like a lot of mosques in Iran. You can go inside and take pictures, although it’s more beautiful from the outside.

Accomodation

We stayed at the Apricot hostel, near the Armenian Market. It is a cool place to stay, especially because of Artur, the owner, who will talk to you for hors about any topic. He’s a really nice and helpful guy and the hostel is just a flat transformed into hostel, small but clean and comfy. Very recomendable and quite cheap (14 €).

Food & Drink

Armenian food is good. You can find traditional Armenian restaurants all over Yerevan offering the typical Piti (Armenian soup) and other dishes.

As to drink, beers are widely found, although not in all places.

Transportation

You can walk pretty much all over the centre of Yerevan. To get to the main bus station you can take a Marshrutka (1000 drams per person) from the centre. It will take some 20 minutes to get there.

We arrived in Yerevan from Tbilisi and departed to Tehran (Iran) from the same main bus station. If you’re heading to Tehran, it is advisable to buy your ticket at least one day in advance from the bus station. The ticket costs some 50 USD and the bus takes 21 hours to get to Tehran. It is a really good bus, so the 21 hours are not that painful.