Romantic Armenia for Couples

It is just before 7 am at Khor Virap monastery. The mist is still draped over the Ararat plain like a soft white quilt, and then, slowly, the wind lifts it. The two snow-capped peaks of Mount Ararat rise into the orange morning light directly behind the small black-stone monastery, exactly as they have for fifteen hundred years. There is one other couple at the monastery wall. You hear the bell start in the bell tower, and your wife reaches for your hand without looking. Even pictures of this place — and you have looked at hundreds — cannot prepare you for what it is to actually be standing there.

Armenia is one of those slow-burn romantic destinations that nobody puts at the top of a honeymoon list and then everybody, once they go, wishes they had. The ingredients are unusual: a small country (the size of Belgium), all of its highlights within 3 hours of the capital, almost no other tourists by Western European standards, a 1,700-year-old Christian tradition that has filled the country with stone monasteries hidden in canyons, and a six-thousand-year continuous winemaking culture — the oldest in the world. Mount Ararat, the 5,137-metre dormant volcano that has been the symbol of the country since biblical times, sits in plain view from half the famous sites. The Caucasus mountains form the country's northern border, with cool forested valleys at Dilijan and the mineral-water spa town of Jermuk at 2,100 m.

The infrastructure for romantic travel has quietly become excellent. Tufenkian Heritage Hotels operate four design-led boutique properties — the medieval-castle-style Avan Dzoraget on the Debed river, the Old Dilijan complex in the forest, the Avan Marak on Lake Sevan and the Historic Yerevan in the capital — each at around half the price of equivalent European boutique hotels. Mineral-spring spa hotels at Jermuk run wellness packages built on naturally hot thermal water at 53°C. The country's small army of private tour operators on Viator and GetYourGuide will customise a Garni-Geghard-Khor Virap day exactly for your group of two, with the timing built around sunrise at Khor Virap if you ask. Restaurants in Yerevan have a serious rooftop scene with Mount Ararat as the backdrop. The food is wonderful, the wine is the oldest on Earth, and you will not see another foreign face for hours at a time.

Where Mount Ararat watches over you

The 5,137 m bulk of Mount Ararat sits across the closed border in Turkey but dominates the southern view from Armenia. The dormant volcano is the symbol of the country, the place where the biblical Noah's Ark is said to have come to rest, and the unforgettable backdrop to half a dozen of the country's most romantic destinations.

Khor Virap monastery (5th century, rebuilt 17th century) is the unbeatable spot — the small stone monastery sits on a low hill on the floor of the Ararat plain, exactly 40 km south of Yerevan, with Mount Ararat rising directly behind it. The classic photograph has the monastery in the foreground and the snow-capped twin peaks of Ararat and Sis behind. The trick to getting the view is timing: visit on a clear morning between 6:30 am and 9:00 am before the heat haze rises off the plain, and check weather two days in advance — the peaks are obscured by haze on around four days out of ten in summer, two days out of ten in autumn and spring. October is the most reliable month.

Garni temple, an hour east of Yerevan, is the Caucasus's only surviving Greco-Roman pagan temple (1st century AD, dedicated to the sun god Mihr), perched on a cliff above the deep Azat river canyon with views down to the basalt “Symphony of Stones” columnar rock formation. Five kilometres further up the road, the Geghard monastery is partly carved into the rock face of the canyon at the head of the gorge, with a 13th-century church cut from a single basalt cliff and a UNESCO World Heritage listing. The two sites combine into the country's classic half-day couples' trip, often paired with a lavash-baking experience at a village along the way.

For sunset rather than sunrise views of Ararat, the Cascade complex in central Yerevan — a giant Soviet-era staircase rising from Tamanyan Park — gives the most photogenic city-and-mountain panorama. The summit terrace is free and stays open after dark. The Cascade Royal restaurant at the top is the high-end rooftop option; the cheaper option is to bring a bottle of Areni red wine to the upper landings and watch the sun set behind Aragats while Ararat turns rose-pink in the south.

Forest cabins, basalt castles and mineral-spring spas

The country's most distinctive romantic stays are not the international-chain hotels of Yerevan but the heritage boutique properties scattered through the mountain provinces. The Tufenkian Heritage chain (Armenian-American owned, opened from 2003 onwards) restores or builds in traditional Caucasian style with hand-knotted Armenian carpets, basalt-stone walls and locally crafted furniture — their four properties at Avan Dzoraget (Lori, on the Debed canyon), Old Dilijan (Tavush, in the forest), Avan Marak (Lake Sevan) and Historic Yerevan (Republic Square) are all excellent and at around half the price of equivalent European boutique hotels.

Avan Dzoraget is the most romantic of the four — an ambitious basalt-stone hotel deliberately designed to resemble a medieval Armenian castle, perched on the bank of the Debed river in the deep Dzoraget canyon of Lori province, three hours north of Yerevan. The hotel has 34 rooms, a heated pool and hot tub set into the courtyard, a Western-Armenian-cuisine restaurant under stone vaulting, and a riverside garden where breakfast is served in summer. From here the UNESCO monasteries of Haghpat and Sanahin are 30 minutes away, and the Dilijan National Park is 90 minutes. Horse riding from the hotel stable and rafting trips on the Debed river are organised on site.

Dilijan town in Tavush province is the country's gentlest mountain retreat — 1,500 m altitude, a beech-forested valley, the famous Dilijan mineral water (the local Armenians say drinking it cures everything), the Haghartsin and Goshavank monasteries hidden in the surrounding forest, and cool summer temperatures even when Yerevan hits 38°C. The Old Dilijan Complex restoration on Sharambeyan Street and a handful of small forest guesthouses (Toon Armeni, Lalas, Sharambeyan 28) are the best stays.

Jermuk, two hours south of Yerevan in Vayots Dzor province at 2,100 m, is the country's historic spa town. Six different mineral springs feed a network of spa hotels that have run since the Soviet era and still operate on a residential treatment model — book a 3- or 5-day wellness package and you get accommodation, full board, and a daily schedule of mineral baths, salt-mist inhalations, hydro-massage, mineral-water drinking cures and physiotherapy. The water comes out of the spring at 53°C and is heavy in calcium, magnesium and bicarbonate. The Grand Resort Jermuk and the Jermuk Hotel & SPA are the two leading addresses; both have indoor pools, treatment menus and very serious massage therapists. Walking trails to the Jermuk waterfall and the surrounding alpine meadows are on the doorstep.

Slow dinners, rooftop sunsets and the wine country

The country's Areni wine region in the Vayots Dzor province, three hours south of Yerevan, has been making wine continuously for 6,100 years — the Areni-1 cave complex contains the oldest known winery on the planet. The modern wineries here cluster around the village of Areni: Hin Areni, Old Bridge, Trinity Canyon Vineyards, Momik Wine. Several of them open their tasting rooms by appointment and serve simple lunch menus paired with five or six of their wines; tour operators in Yerevan combine an afternoon at one of the wineries with a sunset visit to the dramatic 13th-century Noravank monastery on its red sandstone cliff perch above the Gnishik canyon.

Yerevan's restaurant scene runs from working-class taverns to design-magazine flagships. The city's most romantic high-end rooms tend to be on the rooftops — Montmartre on the 12th floor of the Paris Hotel for the city-and-Ararat view, Cascade Royal at the top of the Cascade stairway, Mozaic Sky at the Elite Plaza Business Center, and Level Eleven at the Golden Palace. The Kharpert restaurant at the Tufenkian Historic Yerevan hotel does a quieter, intimate Western Armenian dinner with live jazz on weekend evenings.

Saryan Street, two blocks behind the Opera, is the city's wine-bar quarter — six small natural-wine bars within 100 m of each other (In Vino, Wine Republic, Yerevan Wine Days), open from late afternoon to 1 am, with by-the-glass selections from the country's 70-odd small wineries. The neighbourhood comes alive after 9 pm in summer and is one of the most romantic places to spend an Armenian evening — warm air, jazz spilling from open doorways, the streetlamps lighting the Soviet-era apartment buildings overhead.

For a slower escape, Lake Sevan at 1,900 m altitude is an hour north of Yerevan and runs noticeably cooler than the capital all summer. The Sevan peninsula on the western shore (with its 9th-century Sevanavank monastery on the headland) is the postcard view; the quieter eastern shore at Shorzha and Norashen has small lakeside restaurants serving the lake's endemic ishkhan trout grilled over charcoal — book one of the lakeside terraces at sunset for the deep gold-and-pink reflection across the water.

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