Monastery · Saghmosavan, Ashtarak community, Aragatsotn
Saghmosavank Monastery
Սաղմոսավանք · Saghmosavank
Prince Vache Vachutyan's monastery on the rim of the Kasagh river gorge at Saghmosavan, where the Church of Zion of 1215 and a gavit added by his son in 1255 face Mount Ara.
Where it is
40.3805, 44.3967
Why go
The setting does much of the work here: the buildings stand at the very edge of the drop into the gorge, which is why Saghmosavank is a favourite for weddings and photo shoots. It was also a medieval centre of scholarship and calligraphy with a higher school. The Church of Zion follows the cross-winged domed plan with two-storey corner annexes that Vachutyan also used at Hovhannavank, a little way south on the same gorge, and the two monasteries combine easily in one outing.
Near Saghmosavank Monastery
Church
Karmravor Church
Ashtarak's Karmravor — 'the reddish one' — is a compact 7th-century cross-plan church whose octagonal drum still carries many of the original roof tiles bedded in mortar.
9 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Amberd Fortress
A basalt-walled fortress at 2,300 m on the southern slopes of Mount Aragats, on a triangular cape where the Arkashen and Amberd rivers meet, with the Vahramashen church of 1026 beside it.
14 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Church
Saint Mesrop Mashtots Church, Oshakan
The black-tuff basilica in Oshakan built in 1873–79 over the grave of Mesrop Mashtots, creator of the Armenian alphabet, whose tomb lies in a crypt beneath the main altar.
15 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Church
Ptghnavank
The roofless shell of a 6th–7th-century domed hall church in the middle of Ptghni village, just north of Yerevan, with carved window frames and a relief of a lion beneath a palm tree.
21 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ