Preface: When we currently think of the main feeling associated with our 4 day trip to Yerevan, Armenia... the first that comes to mind, on my part at least, is guilt... because it all happened close to three weeks ago. This amounts to ‘once upon a time, in a land far, far away’ in terms of how busy we’ve been in the last three weeks... but here goes.

We had been planning our little jaunt to Amenia from the point we booked the trip to Georgia. The owners of little Ara the kitten were due back around 24 October - so we planned around that. Did we mention the amount of luggage we’re travelling with lately? Suffice to say, if we were 5 feet tall, tiny and just had a wee backpack (or large handbag) each, we could have taken a public minibus for the 6 hour drive to Armenia. The Marshrutka’s have literally only one thing going for them - and it’s not the winning personality of the drivers. The thing they have going for them is price... 35 lari per person, or US$26 for the pair of us (US$52/return). We are not however emaciated backpackers and have rather ridiculously, 3 large bags and 4 cabin bags. We would likely have had to hire the whole bus. So we did - except we got a nice people-mover with lots of luggage room and a Russian speaking driver for a mere four times as much. And it was worth every, single red cent of the US$200 we paid. (PS - would have cost 6-7 times as more for an English speaking driver... we economise where we can.)

We left Tibilisi (along with enough luggage to set up our own small country if we were that way inclined) and had an excellent drive to the country next door. More or less 6 hours to the minute as we weren’t held up at all at the border. All good leaving Georgia (the bags got to stay in the car) but slightly tiresome heading into Armenia as us and the baggages had to jump out, load up the world’s crookedest trolleys and wend our way over the border. We were a bit naive (don’t know why - we knew Georgia’s roads were in horrendous condition from personal experience). For some reason we thought the highway between the two capital cities would be quite good. Possibly even impressive. Nope. Standard Georgian roads - and even fresh air - once we were out of Tbilisi. Then they got a bit dodgier... then we crossed into Armenia. Whilst they are working very hard and resurfacing vast swathes of the roads over the high mountain passes, we nevertheless almost lost the car into pot holes a couple of times. Luckily the driver does this route all the time - so avoided some of the worst road imperfections. It was beautiful scenery and a much needed change of scenery... The pigs wandering over the road - the cows - the children - the other cars - all wandering over the road. Our driver was a bit of a rarity - whilst it was killing him to do it, he did follow the various speed limits (which, compared to other drivers, made us look like we meandered to Yerevan rather than drove).

We stopped for gas a couple of times - proper gas, not petrol, as Armenia runs on natural gas. On the one hand - the cars run so much cleaner and the diesel pollution so prevalent in Tbilisi was non-existent. On the other had... the cars pull into massive gas-stations where a skinny hose is hooked up, making cars look a bit like gas heaters. It’s all perfectly safe. Each regassing bay is separated by large concrete block walls. Passengers and drivers have to leave the cars and walk a safe distance away (they even have a waiting room). As I said, perfectly safe. Apparently. Our driver stopped on the Georgia side to buy us a bag of fruit (did our breakfasts for the 4 days in Yerevan) and once we were into Armenia we stopped at scenic Lake Sevan and he bought us a couple of freshly smoked Lake Sevan trout (did our evening nibbles with Armenian lavash bread for 2 or 3 evenings). Loaded with food we arrived at our AirBnB and couldn’t have been happier. It was essentially an Austin Power’s shagadelic place right in the centre of town. We’re never 100% confident with AirBnBs until we checkin and everything is as expected. We vowed to use the jacuzzi 3 times a day - and it was no problem at all after 2 months without a bathtub!

On the subject of being drenched in water, that pretty much sums up the weather we had in Yerevan. Out of 4 days... we had stunning weather on one of them. And torrential rain to one degree or another for the other three. Which was fabulous as we did a bit of fluffing about with the packing and spent inordinate amounts of time in the jacuzzi. James had found out the number 1 place to eat in Yerevan was a 10 minute walk from the apartment. It was so good on the first night that we braved the rains for the following 3 nights and ate nowhere else. It was that good. Essentially southern Armenian (aka Middle Eastern), we enjoyed various grilled meats, tabbouleh, hummus etc. We trundled home with it and used our dining area in the apartment - in order to accompany the dinners with the Scotch... made in Scotland, bought in Spain and preserved all the way through Georgia (due to their cheap vodka). The alcohol arbitrage had to end in Armenia - in order not to have the weight in our bags, the scotch had to be drunk... sigh.

Our final full day dawned with blue skies and sunshine and not quite so cold so we finally ventured out and saw the local sights, including a wonderful multiple escalator ride up the Cascades. Saved 500 odd steps and we enjoyed all the modern art on the way up. The highlight of the whole stay was this incredibly clear, sunny day as we were treated to crystalline views of the behemoth of Mount Ararat rising up behind the city of Yerevan. Absolutely magic. It finished off our visit to Armenia on a high and the snow in the distance explained the cold and rainy days that preceded it. What we didn’t expect when we started the drive back to Tbiilisi was the snow was right down at city level. As soon as we reached the outskirts of town we realised there was snow all around - amazing - and certainly explained the chill in the air.

It seemed like a much, much longer drive back to Georgia, but we managed to amuse oursleves catching up with photos, news and emails. All good fun, but we were very happy indeed when we finally got us, the car and the Russian speaking driver safely to our little guesthouse near Tbilisi airport. We pumped the name and address of the guesthouse into his Russian speaking mobile and it set a course. We put the same details into Google Maps on our phone and set a course. We were seemingly heading right to the guesthouse according to our phone when he pulled off the highway in some flight of fancy and without paying an ounce of attention to his phone. Problem with exiting the highway at peak hour in Tbilisi is that you’re fighting traffic to get back to the turn around point just to continue the trip that had been going well. For another 30 minutes... Eventually we phoned the guesthouse and handed the phone to him - and they told him to stay on the highway until a certain point then turn off. We followed the route religiously on our phone and made sure he took that turn - then he fell into la-la land again and was trying to stop and ask directions from old ladies flogging fruit at the side of the road. Almost had to smack him in the head to follow our hand signals for straight ahead etc. We are Apple fanatics and figure if our phones (something like 5 generations old) can talk to Google Maps and get us there, then a professional driver might need to rethink his phone and app choices. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been the end of a long trip and just so unnecessary. Suffice to say he was ecstatic to leave us behind and we waved him off with a big smile. Part of his confusion may have stemmed from the fact that we’d spend US$200 on the trip to and from Yerevan and yet were staying in a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. What he didn’t realise was ‘Marcos Hotel’ was next door to ‘Marcos Furniture’ and this place (at A$25/night with breakfast) actually gets excellent reviews and provides a free shuttle to and from the airport which is less than 10 minutes away. The most important thing as it turns out is the furniture store next door - our room had the most comfortable bed we’ve slept in since Sofia, Bulgaria - all the way back in March 2018. Seems a cruel twist of fate that the cheapest room for the shortest period of time should have the most comfortable bed. Also cruel that we had to be out of it at 3.20 am and going to bed early just didn’t seem to help. We figured that 3.20 am was in fact equivalent to 11.20 pm the night before Dublin time... so when we eventually landed in Dublin at 4 pm (and went to bed at 10 pm that night) - we’d been up for almost 24 hours... no wonder we were zonked and brain fried to say the very least.

The flights themselves were great, though left Tbilisi 45 minutes late (ultimate first world problem? one’s scrambled eggs in business class were overcooked... sigh). We spent a few hours in the lounge in Istanbul in foodies paradise - trundling around the various food stations taste-testing hand made Turkish ravioli, chicken tikka masala, kofta, Turkish delight and James’s favourite, Baileys over ice. The flight from Istanbul to Dublin went off without a hitch and, as we found out upon arrival in Dublin, also without one of our four checked bags. We went from being the first off the plane, through immigration and to the baggage carousel, to being the last to leave the terminal after filing a report for the missing bag. Thankfully it was tracked in Istanbul and arrived to our door here in the Irish countryside 24 hours and 30 minutes later after we landed. Pretty good service altogether (obviously it being loaded on the plane would have been perfect service!) And ‘lo, that brings us to Ireland - where R&R is definitely not on the agenda.