Friday morning, Steve was feeling a little fragile, but was able to go out. Rosemary was very ill and stayed in the hotel all day on her own. Steve went and had breakfast then joined the coach. A few missing people today. The coach picked up the choir, three women and two blokes.
Garni
The fist stop was a Roman temple built in AD77 at Garni. The temple had 24 pillars representing 24 hours. It had been ruined by an earth quake on 1600, and rebuilt in th 1970’s. Here the choir stopped and sang some Armenian folk songs.
Geghard
Next stop was the monastery of Geghardwhere we were entertained to some church singing. This monastery had many chapels, many of them carved out of the rock and with no or very few windows. The singing took place in one cavern where the echo was 40 seconds long.
Some important Russians (Minister of defense) and their KGB body guards hijacked the performance. Putin was apparently in town because of the 1700 year celebrations of Christianity in Armenia.
The Monastery was in lovely surroundings with woods and cliffs, and water falls surrounding it.
Yerevan
Finally back to the book repository where many ancient manuscripts were kept. Many old Greek manuscripts were lost years ago when the ancient Greek libraries were destroyed by fire. Some of these had been translated into Armenian before they were destroyed and were in the library. The oldest book was written in 600AD.
The afternoon was free, so went back to see Rosemary, and then had a snack for lunch at Mr Pig. Did a bit of shopping and bought a dagger and a small stone box.
For Supper, we all went out to a traditional Armenian restaurant. A big argument occurred between Clare and Anna, and half the group left with Clare, and the rest stayed with Anna. Poor Anna was in tears. Anyway, we had a great time.
On the way back we stopped and looked at a Mongrel tomb which had been discovered when a local night club wanted to build a swimming pool. The tomb was nine meters below ground and required 24 truckloads of spoil to be removed. It had been uncovered in January 2001 and was now a showpiece of the disco.
