Following in the vein of my Tbilisi in Photos post, I give you now Yerevan in Sight and Sound, an assortment of photos and videos that capture the city and feature my absolutely favorite thing about the capital: the singing fountains
I’ve already served you up a few options to check out some of Yerevan’s (modern) art- the Cascade outdoor sculpture garden, the Cafesjian Center for the Arts and the Martiros Sarian House Museum
Garni and Geghard are two small towns, roughly 30 and 40 minutes by car from Yerevan respectively. For such popular day-trip destinations- Garni with it’s ancient temple and Geghard with it’s UNESCO-listed monastery- neither are particularly easy to reach using public transportation. There is a bus that runs between Yerevan and Garni, but none go all the way out to Geghard. You would either have to transfer to a second bus line in Garni or take a cab out to the monastery (including wait time and return), which won’t be cheap for a solo traveler.
A fun game to play while traveling through former Soviet countries is discover all the name changes of every square, park and monument from before and after the once powerful nation fell apart.
You don’t have to read too many of my posts to figure out I love museums. These are the temples where art and history are exalted, so it’s no wonder that a worshipper of these pursuits like me would find such solace there. Instead of creating some Armenian complex of arts and culture, Yerevan has taken a different approach to memorialize their poets, authors, composers, artists and filmmakers: the house museum. Scattered through the capital are over a dozen house museums devoted to cultural icons. You really are given an in-depth look at the lives and creative outputs of these artists. The museum staffs were the icing on the cake, often comprised of relatives of the artists and/or passionate devotees, their enthusiasm helps put over event the driest of material.
There’s so much to see and do in Yerevan- especially if you’re an architecture and museum junkie like me- that it can almost be overwhelming figuring out where to start. The Cascade Complex is Yerevan’s Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty and will probably be the first place a hostel staff member will tell you to go, so this is where I’ll begin as well; The Cascade (and modern art museum housed inside) will expose you to Alexander Tamanian, Yerevan’s master architect, and atop is Victory Park and the Mother Armenia Statue, which has a museum about World War II military history and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. (Yes, we're diving in head first!)