I visited this recent addition to Armenia's Tentative List in March 2005. It's actually surprising that it took them so long to put it forward, since Garni is one of the country's best-known sights. I went on a day tour (a combo with Geghard Monastery), organised from the Soviet hotel Erebuni and costing 10 dollars. There was only one (Armenian) fellow passenger.

At the first stop, we know for sure that Yerevan is behind us: the air here is clean and fresh, the surroundings green. We stopped at a monument for a poet. His favourite spot for inspiration was this view of Mount Ararat. This, snow-covered, is clearly visible today.

An hour's drive follows on quiet roads winding through green hilly landscapes. It is striking how few trees there are here: it is almost all grass and stone. Other road users are often beautiful old Russian models of buses and trucks. Villages consist of wooden houses, fruit trees and some scrap heaps. Here and there, a herd of sheep or cows stands along the road. 

Garni is the first main destination for today. Here, we even encounter a limited form of tourism. A bus with Germans is already there, plus an old bus with Armenian children on a school trip. In the parking lot, there are also women selling fruit that has been preserved in glass jars and round loaves of bread. However, we immediately walk onto the grounds. The very beautiful Hellenistic temple looks like a picture. This pagan temple actually dates from the first century, but was only completely rebuilt in the twentieth century. The state of perfection is, therefore, rather misleading. Besides the temple, there are several other buildings on the site. The most interesting of these is the bathhouse, where a mosaic in Greek style has been preserved.

The temple stands on a rocky outcrop above the Azat River. The view here offers typical rock formations that look like organ pipes: the ‘Basalt Organ’ Columnar Joint in the site name.