Walking Tour in Armenia

At first we thought it would be difficult to travel to Armenia given the current situation around the world. But Arara tour has managed to provide excellent services and we enjoyed our trip to Armenia. They helped us with all the information for Covid restrictions and requirements. After taking the test at the airport and getting the negative results, we were met by the driver who politely dropped us off at the airport. The following day our lovely guide Arthur met us at the hotel lobby. We were so lucky to have him during our tour. He is an excellent guy and true professional.
The hotels we stayed during the trip were very comfortable and with spacious rooms. We will surely recommend Arara tour to our friends and hopefully travel to this wonderful region with a bigger group as soon as the situation with Covid calms down.

Overall we had a great holiday. We thought it was well organised. Guide was friendly and knowledgeable.
Best bits:
Hikes were very good - not too difficult but made us work.
Monasteries were great and well worth visiting. They all had different characters.
Good recommendations for restaurants by guide.
Overall food and wine very good.
Restaurant near Ijevan highly recommended- found by Guide, Sevan lake and Dilijan (papanino). A recommended list of restaurants however would have been really helpful in some places (Guide did make suggestions - but we ended up at a food court one night simply because we didn’t know where else to go and not everyone used Tripadvisor to rate out of the way places)
Museum in Yerevan was a must see.
Most of hotels/b&b’s good. Best were the b&b Goris, Iris and Armenia.


Worst bits
Lucy Tour. Restaurant was terrible - food not warm and Soviet canteen style. Odd as the place itself and room was quite nice.
Kamar guesthouse was a building site. The hosts were very friendly, and breakfast nice, but we wondered why we didn’t stay in the lovely b&b Armenia an extra night, especially as we drove past it the next morning.
Minotel Barsam was not great. The bed was rock hard and the lights stopped working. We thought this was was to be expected of a city centre hotel until we got to Hotel Apricot at end of holiday and that was much much nicer. We’d have happily have paid extra for a nicer hotel.
It was very hot for hiking which might be a problem for some people. We loved the forest walks which were cooler so maybe some thought in adding extra time there in hot temperatures rather than hiking in the south - and instead just see sights around Goris to make up time.

Recommended
We enjoyed the singers at Geghard and wondered if some live Armenia music could be recommended in an evening

Francesca Winrow Alexander Woywodt 

 

11 day hiking tour was great. Ara was fantastic guide.
Coudnt have been better