Dilijan Dalliance

'Think of Dubai and you'll be warm,' says Hripsime my guide.
Easier said than done: it is -10°C but 'feels like -100°C' (as Hripsime herself admits).

Small mercy, then, to step out of the bitter winds blowing off Lake Sevan into the sheltered interior of Surp Astvatsatsin, the Church of the Holy Mother of God. In the dark interior is a thirteenth century khachkar (Armenian stone cross) bearing a figure of Christ with distinctly Oriental features – a bizarre legacy of the Mongol invasions: it was thought that the invading horde might spare the church if the deity within resembled them, and the fact that the Sevanavank complex still stands is perhaps testimony that the strategy worked.

Later in the day, we head further north and move – somewhat surreally – from the depths of winter back to late autumn. The road to the Haghartsin monastery has frozen over, so we abandon the car and walk the remaining distance through the pretty forests of Dilijan. We chance upon the groundsman (pictured above) along the way, and he invites us to share the wild rosehips and walnuts he has gathered. It is a simple but generous collation which we partake of gratefully, sheltering in the lee of a large oak, surrounded by high peaks and old crumbling khachkars.