I had been fascinated by Ani for a long time, even before it was included on the WHS List. While travelling in Armenia the previous year, I had a far-away view of the site, from across the border, with no possibility to visit, the Armenian-Turrish border still being seald-off. I therefore decided to make a trip only to visit Ani in october 2018.

Luckily, domestic flight from Istanbul are convenient and rather cheap. There are several  daily flights to Kars (50 minutes from Ani), but I chose to get through Van (some 4 hours away) to also enjoy the area’s TL sites (3 around Van lake and one on the way, next to Dogubayazit). Renting a car is quite easy, but don’t expect anyone to speak english in any rental agency, or at police check-points (the area is close to Iran and Armenia borders). However, they all have Google translation on their mobile phone.

Ani is a triangular plateau formed of three valleys. It has been settled since Early Iron Age (BC 1200-1100), and slowly reached its heydays in the Mediaval time. It became the capital of Armenia in 917, and then of the Katholicos (religious seat) in 992. The location of the city on the Silk Road helped a rapid growth, which seemd to have reached 100 000 habitants around 1000. It was then called « the city of thousand and one churches ». It lost it capital status after invasions in 1045 but remained a cosmopolitan trade center where diverse communities lived together and numerous religious monuments were built. The city was abandonned sometime at the end of the 13 th century (due to Mongol invasion, transfer of the Katholikos to Yerevan or destoyed by earthquake, depending on the source).

With a rental car, Ani is very easy to reach, at the end of a well maintained and well signposted road 45 minutes from Kars. There is a bus everyday from Kars leaving two hours to visit the site.

On the site, the first thing we see is the impressive double line of fortifiction. A 10 lira entrance fee is asked as you pass through those fortification. And then lies the triangular plateau where the city once stood, a bare meadow dotted with numerous stones, and a few buildings. They are all made of local volcanic reddish basalt, which give then peculiar appearance and are all in very different state of conservation. There is the central cathedral, numerous chapels and churches spred around the site, a mosque built in 1031, the foundation of a Zoroastrian fire Temple, the citadel high on a hill, the ruins of a Silk Road bridge over the river, and a spectacular fortress at the bottom the hill, near the merger of the valleys.  On the slope of one of the adjacent valley, visible from Ani, is a rock-caved village.

My favorite building is the church of St Gregory of Tigrant Honents (see picture), one of the best preserved monument (built in 1215), overlooking the deepest valley, with very nice view on the river gorge and across the Armenian border, and with spectacular wall paintings.

Allow at least two hours, or better three hours to take full advantage of the site. One of he main feature of this site is its vastness and emptiness. Being far away from touristic roads and closed to visitors from Armenia, very few people get to visit this place. There way probably 6 or 7 tourists while I visited, lost in the 85 hectars of the plateau. Building can almost all be entered, and only the furtherst fortress seem to be off limit.

A last piece of advise : while in the area, the monastery of Khtzkonk and the basilica at Mren (both 7th century) are worth a visit, even if they are very difficult to reach (use google map, as no signs at all) and require to walk (about 2 hours roundtrip for Mren). Maybe a future extension or a new nomination…