Monastery · Vayots Dzor
Noravank Monastery
Նորավանք · Noravank
A monastery at the head of the red-cliffed gorge of the Amaghu river in Vayots Dzor, best known for Burtelashen, a two-storey memorial church whose upper floor is reached by narrow steps jutting from its west façade.
Where it is
39.6849, 45.2329
Why go
The Orbelian princes shaped the complex, and the carver Momik produced its ornament and cross-stones in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Over Burtelashen's doorways, reliefs show the Virgin and Child between the archangels Gabriel and Michael and, higher up, Christ with Peter and Paul; the ground floor beneath held the tombs of Prince Burtel's family. Also inside the walls are Surb Karapet, Surb Stepanos and dozens of khachkars. Noravank and the upper Amaghu valley are among Armenia's tentative World Heritage nominations. It fits into a day with Areni village nearby.
Base yourself nearby
Wine Village
Areni
Areni is a small village in the dry red-rock landscape of Vayots Dzor, at the centre of Armenia's most important wine area and beside the cave where archaeologists found the world's oldest known winery. It is a base rather than a sight: a place to taste wine, visit the Areni-1 cave and reach the Noravank monastery at the end of its gorge, on the main road south towards Goris and Iran.
City
Yerevan
Yerevan is Armenia's capital and the base for almost every trip to the country: a low-rise city built largely from pink volcanic tuff, with a dense cafe and dining culture, serious museums and manuscript collections, Soviet-modernist architecture, and monasteries, wine country and Lake Sevan all within a day's return drive.
Near Noravank Monastery
Cave
Magellan Cave
A cave off the Noravank road near Areni, named after the villager Magellan Arakelyan who found it in 1946 and now visited on short guided tours past stalactites and roosting bats.
5 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Cave
Areni-1 Cave
A limestone cave in the Arpa River gorge at Areni where excavators found a winemaking installation of about 4000 BC and a leather shoe dated to 3627–3377 BC.
6 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Canyon
Gnishik Canyon
A red-walled gorge in Vayots Dzor cut by the Gnishik river, about 8 km long, with Noravank monastery above its lower end and marked trails in the Arpa Protected Landscape.
6 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Smbataberd Fortress
The basalt-walled ruin of a medieval fortress on a ridge between the villages of Artabuynk and Yeghegis, its towers watching over the gorge of the Yeghegis river.
23 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ