Seeing Tatev pop up as a potential WH candidate for 2028, I had to dive deeply into my memory for an opinion. Fortunately, I still have my diaries in Dutch available.

I visited in 2005, as a day trip from Yerevan with a car + driver. It’s in the direction of Iran and it would take us 5 hours to get there. We regularly encountered large trucks with Iranian number plates. The chance that they are bringing something to Armenia is greater than getting something, but Iran is (compared to Azerbaijan and Turkey) a good neighbour. We also got caught up in very large herds of sheep twice, accompanied by shepherds and dogs.

After an hour or two, we stopped at a roadside restaurant. It was more of a shack, but with two seats outside (photo top right). A small river flows by, and the restaurant also serves fish. And meat, because the owner came outside with half a pig and a cleaver to make slices of meat for the barbecue on a sawn-off tree stump. We only took coffee and enjoyed the surroundings. The driver didn't want me to pay, and the owner of the restaurant didn't want any money from the driver either, hospitality all the way.

Like all real monasteries, Tatev lies in an almost impossible location. First, we had to go down a winding road into the valley for half an hour, and then up again via the continuation of that winding road for another half an hour. It was so foggy there that I only saw the monastery when we were in the parking lot. And it turned out we were not even the only visitors: there was also a bus carrying a few Armenian school children.

The monastery is supposedly fantastically situated like a fortress on a mountain top, but I didn't see anything of that. I was already happy that I could distinguish the main buildings in the courtyard. This is also an austere monastery. The most notable element is a very special khatchkar on a pillar on the grounds (photo left), the so-called "swinging column" that alerts to minor earth tremors.

On the drive back, we made a stop at Zorots Karer (the “Armenian Stonehenge”) and at another great roadside restaurant with fresh food.