retiredmartin

June 2026. Armenia.

Our week in Armenia comes to an end with a late flight home to Luton, and who doesn’t dream of arriving home at Luton Airport at 2am in the morning ?

But first, Mrs RM has got a “short” tour planned before a dash to the airport.

Quite a lot packed into a “short” £15 tour, I thought.

“You SURE we’ll be back by six to get to the airport in plenty of time, Mrs RM ?“.

“Of course, relax, live a little etc etc“.

Well, having seen the southern and northern highlights I’d have been disappointed to have missed the middle bit of Armenia, from Khor Virap‘s monastery under the gaze of Ararat (pic: Armenia Guide),

to UNESCO listed Geghard‘s shard of light and mausoleum,

the best monastery of the trip, and I think we did 37 of them.

But having been promised “lunch stop at one“, and only had leftover bread for breakfast, I was suddenly conscious it was now approaching 2pm as we parked up at Garni, the centrepiece of the day.

Ah, we’re being taken to a restaurant now, and sat in the garden of the GarniRestHotel a menu was plonked down for perusal.

But, having chosen the first thing on the menu we were then ushered off to see the pagan temple while the previous group finished.

I mean, it’s all very impressive,

but who can focus on temples when it’s approaching half-three and your tummy is rumbling ?

We skipped our guide’s history lesson and went back to the garden to await “lunch”.

Blackpool Jane, always perceptive, noted Sofia as being less friendly in her latest post, and the young Bulgarian sitting opposite inhad been notably dour (not helped by our assumption he was Russian as the tour was conducted in Russian).

It turns out the lad was just hungry, bless him, and quite frankly could have done without the 20 minute display of lavash-making (think family naans) before getting a bite himself. Once fed he became chatty and funny, so I say give Bulgarians a chance.

Having ordered first, it was inevitable that our chicken BBQ (literally, just barbecued chicken bits) would be the last to come out of the kitchen, the calling of names that sounded like “Martin” (but weren’t) was causing me to jump up and shout “here !” and then sit down, dejected.

16:12 when lunch arrived, by 16:22 it was finished, and with payment in cash I was hoping I’d saved enough for the Yandex to the airport later.

If we made it to the airport. A couple of impressive stops on the way back included the Symphony of Stones,

a series of basalt columns to rival the Giants Causeway. All the photos are on Mrs RM’s shiny new camera though, so you’ll have to wait for those.

Back in Yerevan, only an hour late, we booked a Yandex from the Marriot over the road, not realising it would actually stop, dead, on the main road rather than come into the car park. Keeping a Yandex waiting is a serious offence.

So I was a bit stressed by the time we arrived, only 4 hours before our flight.

Blimey, I needed that Aleksandrapol.