The Aras river is a hard border here, a green-brown ribbon in a gorge with fences and watchtowers on one bank and the mountains of north-western Iran on the other. At this point you look from the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan across to the Iranian side, where a group of Armenian monasteries sits in country that Armenians have called home for nearly two thousand years. UNESCO lists them together as the Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran: the Monastery of Saint Thaddeus, the Monastery of Saint Stepanos, and the chapel of Dzordzor.
Saint Stepanos is the one you can see best from here. It stands in the Aras gorge itself, a small fortress-like complex of warm stone in a dry canyon with cliffs rising on both sides, and it is still the setting for a pilgrimage and for Armenian services. The architecture combines the steep conical domes and carved stone of the Armenian tradition with a Persian taste for decoration in the details, a mix that makes the whole group unusual. Keep in mind that you are looking at a sensitive frontier. Photography near the river is tolerated in some places and frowned upon in others, and soldiers are never far, so be polite and do not point a long lens at anything with a flag.
The ride around here is a dry upland one. The road along the Aras runs through bare hills of ochre and grey rock, with narrow irrigated strips where poplars and orchards cling to the river. Wind is common, the sun is hard, and winters bring snow on the higher passes and a bitter cold on the plateau. Late spring and early autumn are the sensible seasons. The Aras valley is known for its birdlife, and in spring the gorge fills with swifts and bee-eaters.
Culfa, called Julfa in the old spelling, lies about fourteen kilometres away and has roughly ten thousand people, fuel and basic food. The town once had a famous medieval cemetery of carved stone crosses, the khachkars, which was destroyed in the early 2000s, a loss that still weighs on the region's memory. Border permits and visa matters are strict in this corner, so check your papers well before you plan to reach the river, and do not expect smooth improvisation.