Day 19 Armenia - Yerevan

Today, the city tour of Yerevan was on the agenda. First, I visited a huge market hall called GUM, similar to the big department store in Moscow. There were huge quantities of dried fruits, very delicious.

Afterwards, I strolled through the city center, where I saw various buildings and statues.

I also visited the Mother Armenia monument. Outside, there are various war machines, and inside, there is a museum mainly about the conflict with Azerbaijan, but also about other military actions Armenians were involved in.

Many, many pictures of old fighters, a few dioramas, one of the storming of the Reichstag in 1945... It all seemed like a glorification of the fighters, and a critical examination of conflict resolution through violence was not apparent to me. It spontaneously reminded me of the Bunker Museum in Kaliningrad.

Later, I went to the Cascades, which is a huge staircase with art exhibitions and a beautiful view of Yerevan. From there, as well as from the aforementioned monument, you can see Mount Ararat in the distance, which rises majestically above the flat land and has visible ice and snow on its upper part.

I then continued to stroll through the city, visited various buildings, and enjoyed the city's atmosphere in cafes while reading my travel guide.

During that time, I had an interesting experience. Normally, a coffee here in the city center costs about 50 cents to 1.50 euros, so it's inexpensive compared to our standards. But in one cafe, I was shocked. They charged me about 10 euros for a cup of coffee... I asked to see the menu that wasn't displayed before. And indeed... a small coffee costs over 4 euros, doubled that plus the additional cost of a splash of milk (about 30-40ml) and the added tip, it adds up to about 10 euros. I can't shake the feeling that there were two menus with different prices... Lesson learned, next time I will check the prices beforehand.

Then I walked to the main train station in Yerevan. It's a beautiful building, but there were hardly any passengers and only one train standing there... It seems that traveling by train is not in fashion here.

After a long walk back to the hotel (I took a taxi there, a 10-minute ride for about 2.25 euros), I went to a great restaurant outside the city with some locals and my Dutch friend. Of course, we drove there in a vintage Volga M24. It was a very comfortable ride, I felt like I was sitting on a sofa and barely noticed the bad roads. Just my thing...

All in all, it was another great day, according to my mobile app, I walked almost 31,000 steps, which is about 25 km...