Ani

I visited Ani in April 2025 so I thought I would give an update on the site now :)

Getting to Ani was very easy. There is a small bus that will take tourists to the site everyday at 9am starting at Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Paşa Konağı. The shuttle stays at Ani until 12:45, when it departs back to the same location. Here is the site that lists the updated minibus times, in case they change in the future. The drive is about 50 minutes, and you can pay with credit card or cash -- 100 tl per person. I found the ~2.5 hours at the site more than enough to explore everything and take in the beauty of the natural landscape. Ani accepts MuzeKart if you have it; otherwise, the foreigner price is 8 euros.

While at Ani, there are signs for most of the sites in Turkish and English that briefly explain the structures. However, the signs are brief and left me wanting more; I used the website "virtual ani" to read about the history, excavation, and purpose of each building. The Ani cathedral, for some the star of the show, is currently under some construction so you cannot enter it. The farthest I walked was maybe about an hour from the city gates. There were also wild horses roaming about, as well as some other small creatures! Despite arriving with 5 other tourists, most of the time it felt like I had the place …

I'm gonna go right out and say it: Ani is better in winter. I'm Canadian so -17 degrees is like, "warm" still. The main attraction are the white layers of snow all over, covering the rather barren fields and the gorge. Hard to imagine what people did in winter before. I also wasn't the only "crazy" visitor. There were many tour groups from Ankara that flew into Kars just for this. In fact, that's the sensible thing to do. The road trips can be fun but it's quite far east with nothing much on the way. Getting to Van also takes quite a bit of time. It could have saved me 2 days and just miss some rather mediocre tentative sites.

So what else can I add to the info already well described before? The road to the site is officially limited to 50km/h but I don't see why. There are some driving instructions at the gas station but that's about it. Maybe there are cows in summer.

The audio guide isn't bad. The info panels have nearly all the same stuff written if still readable, but it also helps to guide you around the circular path. It had info on the city walls (which I didn't even expect because most people just photograph the church) that is not described anywhere though.

Shame about the vandalism inside the iconic church, with everyone seemingly wanting to leave their names carved into the stones.

Before I always wondered …

I visited this WHS in Spring 2021. It is quite remote being around 17-18 hours by car from Istanbul but it certainly didn't disappoint. Possibly since I haven't visited Armenia or Georgia yet, I was able to appreciate this Armenian city in ruins a bit more since all the architectural details and what's left of the few paintings was pretty new to me.

Using Kars as your base still leaves a good 45 minute road trip to get to and from the ruins of Ani. Before starting your visit, keep in mind that toilets and water/food facilities are only available near the entrance gate, and the vast plains and gorges can be quite windy and chilly or extremely dry and hot depending on when you're visiting. The farthest point we hiked to was a good 1.5-2 hrs walk away from the entrance gate. At least when we visited, the entrance gate is never completely closed after sunset and closing hours to avoid locking any visitors in the "open-air museum". The whole atmosphere is kind of surreal, especially when you glance over to the destroyed bridge, and realise that what could easily be a convenient border between Turkey and Armenia (Yerevan is less than 100 km away!), is in fact a highly guarded and sensitive border for both countries. Lots of refugees and migrants live in tents and work in the vast fields not far from the ruins. At the same time, this surreal border between Turkey and Armenia seems …

We visited Ani (on the UNESCO list since 2016) in February 2020. We had travelled on the Eastern Express Train from Ankara to Kars and then another 42km to the site (a public transport bus leaves from Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Paşa Konağı in Kars). Many people had advised us to make this trip in winter because the snow covered plains and mountains are spectacular to watch. Indeed, the journey through the winter landscape of Anatolia, and when arriving in Ani the contrast between the ruins in dark brown and grey stone, the white blanket of snow across the ancient city against a deep blue sky in the bright sun light, was impressive despite the biting cold with temperatures far below zero.

With roots going back to the Chalcolithic period, Ani, the medieval capital of the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia is located at the old Silk Road in the East of Turkey, right on the border with Armenia - you actually can see the border posts on the other side; the city is situated in rather dramatic surroundings at 1300m above sea level, on its eastern side protected by a ravine and on its western side by a valley.  

Its heydays were in the 10th and 11th centuries before the city of a thousand churches as it was called with more than 100,000 inhabitants was destroyed by the Mongols in 1236. After several periods of revival the city was finally abandoned in the 18th century. In recent history it …

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 …

Considering the history between Turkey and Armenia, this is a controversial nomination. I won’t go into detail here about the current Turkish political scene and its complicated opinions on what happened in 1915. But behind the scenes, the acceptance of Ani as an important part of the heritage of this region has been in the making for almost 20 years. The site finally entered Turkey’s Tentative List in 2012.

I visited Ani way back in 1992, during a 3-week-long group tour that took us all over Turkey by bus. I don’t remember much about Ani, only the remoteness (and exoticness!) of the whole of eastern Turkey is a clear memory. Ani itself for me is symbolized by that one ruined church and the deep gorge next to it that divides the two countries.

Since then quite a lot seems to have changed. While looking for additional photos to accompany this post I noticed all kinds of buildings that I do not remember from 1992, some including interior murals. The website Virtual Ani covers all of them. Recent visitors confirm that it still is an off-the-beaten-track destination though. Minor Sights describes his visit in 2012 as a lonely experience and helpfully suggests "Don't mention the war!" A Tripadvisor report from June 2015 hints at the very vast size of the site, the need to bring plenty of drinking water, and the entrance fee of 8 Turkish Lira.