CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
299 km from Başgedikler to Başgedikler, about 5 h 18 of riding. On the way it passes Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t, Monastery of Geghard and the Upper Azat Va and back through Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Türkiye into Armenia - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 60 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The first thing to understand about Ani is that you stand in one country and look into another. The ruined city lies on a promontory above the Akhurian River, and that river is the border between Armenia and Turkey, shut since 1993. The ruins themselves are on the Turkish bank, while the nearest Armenian towns, Maralik and the villages around it, are twenty kilometres or more away across open plateau. A rider coming from the Armenian side can get close enough to see the walls and the cathedral dome across the gorge, and that is a strange, quiet, rather moving experience in its own right.
Read the complete Archaeological Site of Ani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archaeological Site of Ani is where the day begins. Next is Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t.
Armenians call this the Mother See, and the phrase is meant literally: Echmiatsin is the spiritual centre of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the seat of the Catholicos, the place the faith is governed from. The cathedral stands on the edge of Vagharshapat, a flat town of about forty thousand on the Ararat plain west of Yerevan. Tradition holds that Gregory the Illuminator, after the king converted around the year 301, saw a vision of Christ descending with a golden hammer to mark where the church should rise. That vision gave the place its name: Echmiatsin means the descent of the only-begotten. The present building has been rebuilt and added to many times, but its bones date to the fifth century and the core to even earlier.
Read the complete Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t comes up about 91 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monastery of Geghard and the Upper Azat Va.
Geghard is cut into a cliff. Some of its chapels are built out of the mountain, others hollowed from it, and the effect is of a monastery that grew out of the rock instead of being placed on it. It sits at the head of the Azat gorge, about forty kilometres east of Yerevan, in a narrow valley where the walls rise vertically on three sides and the stream chatters below. The name means the spear, from the relic of the lance that pierced Christ, brought here by the apostle Thaddeus according to tradition and kept for centuries before being moved to Echmiatsin. The monastery was founded in the early Middle Ages, but most of what you see dates to the thirteenth century, when the princely Proshyan family built the rock-cut chapels. Together with the upper Azat valley it is a UNESCO site.
Read the complete Monastery of Geghard and the Upper Azat Va write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 150 km into the recorded legs you reach Monastery of Geghard and the Upper Azat Va. Next is back through Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t, late in the day. Next is Archaeological Site of Ani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Archaeological Site of Ani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Archaeological Site of Ani. That is the ride.
Archaeological Site of Ani → Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t → Monastery of Geghard and the Upper Azat Va is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery of Geghard and the Upper Azat Va → back through Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and t → Archaeological Site of Ani is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.