Travel Guide Areni

The cheerful village of Areni, surrounded by vineyards and orchards, which can be reached from Yerevan after a hundred kilometers of the road along the Arax towards the southeast and through a more colorful and varied landscape, announcing the southern Armenia, commands with pride the access to the region of Vayots Dzor. The tumultuous course of the Arpa River, on which it is coiled, and whose basin more or less outlines the province, has fertilized the mountain slopes, where vineyards and orchards climb. On the left bank of the river, on a knoll overlooking the village, which has given its name to a sweet wine that can be tasted in the cellars of the local winery, stands a curious ochre stone church, but it was the discovery by archaeologists a few years ago of a cellar containing traces of wine-making activity dating back 6,000 years that made Areni famous, and it hosts a wine festival every year in early October.