Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia: Baku, Tbilisi, Kazbegi and Yerevan

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Baku

   Heydar Aliyev International Airport to your hotel in Baku

   • Environ 30 min de route
   • Welcome dinner
   • Nuit : Baku
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD), about 25 km northeast of central Baku. A driver meets every guest's flight on day 1, whatever the time, and takes you to a central hotel within walking distance of the Old City. To make the evening briefing, plan to land by about 4 pm. At 6 pm your See Sight Tours guide, who stays with you all the way to Yerevan, meets the group to talk through the route, the two border crossings, what to wear in mosques and churches and how the days are paced. Then we walk along the Caspian seafront boulevard to a welcome dinner of Azerbaijani dishes to share: plov rice layered with saffron, dried fruit and chestnuts, dolma, grilled kebabs and fresh herbs. If you arrive early, the boulevard and Fountains Square are a short walk from the hotel, and the Flame Towers light up after dark on the hill above the bay.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD), at any time
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner in Baku

   Temps libre : Free until the 6 pm briefing

2. Jour 2 : Baku's Old City on foot

   Icherisheher, the Shirvanshahs' Palace, the Maiden Tower, the Carpet Museum and the boulevard

   • Petit-déjeuner
   • Nuit : Baku
   Détail du jour 2

   We set out at 9 am, before the heat and the tour coaches, through the gates of Icherisheher, Baku's walled Old City and a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the Shirvanshahs' Palace and the Maiden Tower. Inside the walls are lanes of limestone houses with wooden balconies, small mosques and two caravanserais where merchants on the Silk Road once stabled their camels. The 15th-century Shirvanshahs' Palace has a mausoleum, a bathhouse and a royal mosque around its courtyards. Climb the Maiden Tower, whose age and purpose are still argued over, for the view across the rooftops to the bay. After lunch at your own pace in the Old City, we walk down to the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, a building shaped like a rolled carpet, with weavings from every region of the country. We finish around 2 pm on the seafront. The rest of the afternoon is free: the Heydar Aliyev Centre's white curves, a hammam or a café on Nizami Street.

   Compris

   • Old City walk with your guide
   • The Shirvanshahs' Palace
   • The Maiden Tower
   • The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum

   Activités en option

   • The Heydar Aliyev Centre exhibitions, paid locally

   Option plus facile : See the Maiden Tower from its foot and rest in a teahouse while the group climbs.

   Option plus active : Walk on afterwards with your guide up the funicular path to the Flame Towers viewpoint.

   Temps libre : Afternoon and evening free

   Activité : About 3 to 4 hours on foot on stone lanes; the Maiden Tower has narrow stairs.

3. Jour 3 : Gobustan, mud volcanoes and Yanar Dag

   Baku to Gobustan and the mud volcanoes, back to Baku, then Yanar Dag at dusk

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner
   • Nuit : Baku
   Détail du jour 3

   We leave at about 9 am (8:30 at weekends) and drive about an hour south along the Caspian shore to Gobustan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where thousands of rock carvings, the oldest from the Stone Age, cover boulders on a hillside above the sea: hunters, boats, dancers, gazelles and aurochs. Start in the museum, then walk the paths among the rocks before the midday heat. From the village, local 4x4s take us a few kilometres over dirt tracks to a field of mud volcanoes, low grey cones that gurgle and spit cold mud as gas rises through them. Azerbaijan has a large share of the world's mud volcanoes. We are back in Baku for a late lunch at your own pace and a free afternoon. At dusk we drive about 30 minutes north to Yanar Dag on the Absheron peninsula, a hillside where natural gas seeping from the ground has burned for decades, best seen once the light goes.

   Compris

   • Gobustan museum and petroglyphs with your guide
   • Local 4x4 to the mud volcanoes
   • Yanar Dag at dusk

   Option plus facile : Stay on the paved paths near the Gobustan museum and watch the mud volcanoes from the edge of the field.

   Option plus active : Walk the longer upper trail at Gobustan with your guide, about an hour among the carved rocks.

   Temps libre : Afternoon free in Baku

   Activité : Gobustan is exposed and hot by midday; bring a hat and water. The mud volcano field is uneven and can be slippery. The rock-art site opens at about 10 am on weekdays and 9 am at weekends; we confirm the museum hours with your final itinerary and time the departure to arrive at opening.

4. Jour 4 : Over the hills to Sheki

   Baku to Shamakhi, then Ismayilli and Gabala to Sheki

   • Environ 5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Sheki
   Détail du jour 4

   The longest drive of the trip, about 300 km and four and three quarter hours, because there is no shorter road from the Caspian to Sheki in the Caucasus foothills. It is the only day over our four-hour cap, and we break it into three parts. We leave at 8:30 am, and after about two hours the dry plains give way to green hills at Shamakhi, the old capital of the Shirvanshahs. Visit its Juma Mosque, among the oldest in the Caucasus and rebuilt after earthquakes, and the domed tombs of Yeddi Gumbaz on the hill above town. Lunch is a sit-down meal near Ismayilli, then the road runs west below the mountains through walnut and hazel orchards past Gabala. We reach Sheki at about 4:30 pm. Some itineraries add a mountain detour to Lahij and make this an eight-hour day; we leave it out. The evening is free in the old town, where the halva shops sell Sheki's layered nut and syrup sweet.

   Compris

   • Juma Mosque in Shamakhi
   • Yeddi Gumbaz mausoleums
   • Sit-down lunch near Ismayilli

   Temps libre : Evening free in Sheki

   Activité : The one day over the four-hour driving cap; there is no shorter road, and it is broken at Shamakhi and by lunch.

5. Jour 5 : Sheki's palace, then into Georgia

   Sheki Khan's Palace and Kish, then the Balakan-Lagodekhi border to Sighnaghi in Kakheti

   • Environ 3.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Sighnaghi
   Détail du jour 5

   We are at the Palace of the Sheki Khans when it opens. The 18th-century summer palace is small, and every wall inside is painted with flowers, hunting scenes and battles, the light coming through shebeke windows of coloured glass fitted into wooden lattices without glue or nails. A craftsman nearby shows how the panels are made. Then 5 km up the valley to Kish and its round-towered church, built by the Caucasian Albanians, an early Christian people of this region. We leave Sheki late morning, drive about an hour and a quarter west to lunch in Zaqatala, and reach the Balakan-Lagodekhi border in the early afternoon. Allow one to two hours; you may walk the short way between the posts with your bag, and your guide stays with you while our Georgian driver waits on the other side. An hour and a quarter through the Alazani Valley brings us to Sighnaghi, a hill town inside 18th-century walls. In the evening a winemaking family hosts a supra, a Georgian feast with toasts.

   Compris

   • Palace of the Sheki Khans
   • Shebeke stained-glass workshop
   • Kish church
   • Sit-down lunch in Zaqatala
   • Border crossing at Balakan-Lagodekhi with your guide
   • Supra dinner with a winemaking family in Sighnaghi

   Activité : About 3.5 hours of driving plus the border, broken by Kish, lunch and the crossing itself.

   

6. Jour 6 : Kakheti: Bodbe, Telavi and a qvevri winery

   Sighnaghi to Bodbe Monastery and Telavi, then over the Gombori Pass to Tbilisi

   • Environ 3.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Tbilisi
   Détail du jour 6

   Morning on the Sighnaghi walls, walking a stretch between the towers with the Alazani Valley below and, on a clear day, the Greater Caucasus white on the far side. Then 2 km to Bodbe Monastery, where Saint Nino, who brought Christianity to Georgia in the 4th century, is buried in a garden looking over the valley. We drive about an hour west to Telavi, the old capital of the Kakhetian kings, for its market of churchkhela, the walnuts threaded on string and dipped in thickened grape juice, fresh cheese, herbs and the season's fruit. Lunch is at a family winery nearby, where wine is still made in qvevri, clay jars buried in the ground, a tradition UNESCO lists as intangible heritage. Taste amber wines fermented on their skins and saperavi reds. Then about two hours over the forested Gombori Pass to Tbilisi, arriving around 5 pm at a central hotel for three nights. The evening is free.

   Compris

   • Sighnaghi town walls with your guide
   • Bodbe Monastery and the grave of Saint Nino
   • Telavi market
   • Qvevri winery tasting and lunch

   Option plus facile : Skip the wall walk and take coffee on Sighnaghi's main square, with the same view.

   Option plus active : Walk down the steep path from Bodbe to the spring of Saint Nino and back, about 30 minutes each way.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Tbilisi

   Activité : The Sighnaghi walls have steps and uneven paving.

7. Jour 7 : Old Tbilisi on foot

   Metekhi, the sulphur baths, Narikala Fortress, Sioni Cathedral and Rike Park

   • Petit-déjeuner
   • Nuit : Tbilisi
   Détail du jour 7

   We set out at 9 am, before the day groups, from the Metekhi cliff above the Mtkvari River, where a statue of King Vakhtang Gorgasali, by tradition the city's 5th-century founder, looks across to the old town. Cross the river to Abanotubani, the quarter of brick-domed sulphur baths that gave Tbilisi its name (tbili means warm), and follow the stream into the narrow Leghvtakhevi gorge to its small waterfall. The cable car from Rike Park, or a steep 20-minute path, takes us up to Narikala Fortress, with the whole city below and the Mother of Georgia statue on the ridge. Then down through the carved wooden balconies of Kala to Sioni Cathedral and the 6th-century Anchiskhati Basilica, the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi, finishing around 1 pm by the Peace Bridge. The afternoon and evening are yours: a private room in the sulphur baths, the flea market at the Dry Bridge, or the Georgian National Museum on Rustaveli Avenue.

   Compris

   • Old Town walk with your guide: Metekhi, Abanotubani and the Leghvtakhevi waterfall
   • Cable car to Narikala Fortress
   • Sioni Cathedral and Anchiskhati Basilica
   • Rike Park and the Peace Bridge

   Activités en option

   • A private room in a sulphur bath, paid locally

   Option plus facile : Take the cable car up and back down, and rest in a café while the group walks through Kala.

   Option plus active : Walk up to Narikala from the baths on the steep path instead of taking the cable car.

   Temps libre : Afternoon and evening free

   Activité : About 3 to 4 hours on foot on cobbles and steps.

   

8. Jour 8 : Mtskheta and the road to Kazbegi

   Tbilisi to Mtskheta, then the Georgian Military Highway via Ananuri and the Jvari Pass to Stepantsminda

   • Environ 3.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Stepantsminda
   Détail du jour 8

   We leave at 9 am and in half an hour reach Mtskheta, Georgia's old capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jvari Monastery, a 6th-century church on the hill above the meeting of the Aragvi and Mtkvari rivers, comes first for the view; then Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in the town, where tradition says Christ's robe is buried. From there we join the Georgian Military Highway, the old road over the mountains to Russia. Ananuri, a 17th-century fortress with two churches above the Zhinvali reservoir, is the next stop, and lunch is khinkali, the pleated dumplings this valley is known for, at a restaurant in Pasanauri. Then the road climbs past Gudauri to the Jvari Pass at about 2,400 m, with a stop at the curved mosaic of the Friendship Monument above the gorge. We reach Stepantsminda, at about 1,700 m below Mount Kazbek, by late afternoon, with time for a short evening walk.

   Compris

   • Jvari Monastery and Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta with your guide
   • Ananuri Fortress
   • Sit-down khinkali lunch in Pasanauri
   • The Friendship Monument viewpoint

   Temps libre : Evening free in Stepantsminda

   Activité : The Jvari Pass is at about 2,400 m; bring a warm layer even in summer.

9. Jour 9 : Gergeti early, then back to Tbilisi

   Stepantsminda to Gergeti Trinity Church, then the Georgian Military Highway to Tbilisi

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Tbilisi
   Détail du jour 9

   After an early breakfast, local 4x4s take us up the steep track to Gergeti Trinity Church at about 7:30 am, while the light is soft and before the day traffic from Tbilisi arrives. The 14th-century church stands alone on a ridge at about 2,170 m, and on a clear morning the glaciers of Kazbek, over 5,000 m, fill the sky behind it; below, the roofs of Stepantsminda spread along the Tergi valley. We spend an hour on the ridge, with time to walk out along it, then drive back down the Military Highway, about three hours with stops, and sit down to lunch beside the road near the Zhinvali reservoir. We reach Tbilisi around 4 pm, back at the same hotel, so there is no repacking. The evening is free: a supper of grilled mtsvadi in the old town, or a soak in the sulphur baths after the mountain morning.

   Compris

   • 4x4 to Gergeti Trinity Church and back
   • Sit-down lunch on the Military Highway

   Activités en option

   • A sulphur bath in Tbilisi, paid locally

   Option plus facile : Ride the 4x4 up and down and stay at the church as long as you like.

   Option plus active : Hike up from Gergeti village, about 1.5 to 2 hours with about 400 m of ascent, starting at 7 am with the guide, and ride the 4x4 back down.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Tbilisi

   Activité : Gergeti is at about 2,170 m and can be cold and windy; bring a warm layer.

   

10. Jour 10 : Into Armenia: Haghpat and Dilijan

    Tbilisi to the Sadakhlo-Bagratashen border, Haghpat Monastery in the Debed Canyon, then Dilijan

    • Environ 4 h de route
    • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
    • Nuit : Dilijan
    Détail du jour 10

    We leave Tbilisi at 8:30 am and drive about an hour and a quarter south to the Sadakhlo-Bagratashen crossing into Armenia, the second border of the trip. You show your passport on each side; allow about an hour, depending on the queue. Your guide crosses with you and our Armenian vehicle and driver wait on the far side; depending on the post, you stay with the vehicle or walk the short passport hall with your bag. About an hour up the Debed Canyon, past the copper-mining town of Alaverdi, is Haghpat, a 10th to 13th century monastery on a shelf above the gorge and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its churches, bell tower and book depository are built of dark basalt, and carved stone crosses, khachkars, stand in the courtyard. Lunch is in Haghpat village. Then about an hour and three quarters south through Vanadzor to Dilijan, a town in forested hills where we stay one night. The day is about 4 hours of driving in all, about 260 km, plus the border and Haghpat. The evening is free.

    Compris

    • Border crossing at Sadakhlo-Bagratashen with your guide
    • Haghpat Monastery with your guide
    • Sit-down lunch in Haghpat village

    Temps libre : Evening free in Dilijan

    Activité : About four hours of driving, broken by the border crossing, Haghpat and lunch.

11. Jour 11 : Haghartsin, Lake Sevan and Yerevan

    Dilijan to Haghartsin Monastery and Sevanavank on Lake Sevan, then Yerevan

    • Environ 2.5 h de route
    • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
    • Nuit : Yerevan
    Détail du jour 11

    A morning in Dilijan National Park. We drive about 25 minutes into beech and oak forest to Haghartsin, a 10th to 13th century monastery in a clearing, whose refectory is roofed with crossed stone arches. Walk the short paths around it, then back in Dilijan browse the restored 19th-century houses and craft workshops of Sharambeyan Street. Late morning we cross the hills to Lake Sevan, at about 1,900 m one of the largest high-altitude freshwater lakes in the world. Climb the steps to Sevanavank, two small 9th-century churches on what was an island until Soviet-era water use lowered the lake and joined it to the shore. Lunch is by the lake. Then about an hour and a quarter down to Yerevan, our base for three nights, arriving mid-afternoon with time to unpack and walk to Republic Square in the evening, when the fountains run.

    Compris

    • Haghartsin Monastery in Dilijan National Park
    • Sharambeyan Street in Dilijan
    • Sevanavank on Lake Sevan
    • Sit-down lunch by the lake

    Option plus facile : Stay at the foot of the Sevanavank steps and walk the shore while the group climbs.

    Option plus active : A longer forest walk of about an hour and a half around Haghartsin with your guide.

    Temps libre : Late afternoon and evening free in Yerevan

    Activité : Lake Sevan is at about 1,900 m; the steps to Sevanavank are short but steep.

12. Jour 12 : Khor Virap, the memorial and the Cascade

    Yerevan to Khor Virap, then Tsitsernakaberd and the Cascade in Yerevan

    • Environ 2 h de route
    • Petit-déjeuner
    • Nuit : Yerevan
    Détail du jour 12

    Ararat is usually clearest early, before the haze builds, so we leave at 8 am for Khor Virap, about 45 minutes south across the Ararat plain, close to the closed border with Turkey. The monastery stands on a low hill with the two peaks of Ararat, over 5,100 m, behind it. Below one chapel is the pit where, by tradition, Gregory the Illuminator was held for 13 years before he converted King Trdat III, and Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity, traditionally in 301. Climb down the ladder into it if you like. We are back in Yerevan by late morning for lunch at your own pace. In the afternoon we go to Tsitsernakaberd, the memorial to the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide on a hill above the city, an eternal flame inside a ring of leaning basalt slabs, with the museum beside it; your guide gives it time. We finish at the Cascade, a white stone stairway of terraces and sculptures above the city.

    Compris

    • Khor Virap Monastery with your guide
    • Tsitsernakaberd memorial and the Armenian Genocide Museum
    • The Cascade

    Activités en option

    • A brandy tasting in Yerevan, paid locally

    Option plus facile : Skip the ladder into the pit at Khor Virap and take in the view of Ararat from the walls; ride the Cascade's indoor escalators.

    Option plus active : Climb the low hill behind Khor Virap for the widest view, and the Cascade's outdoor stairs to the top terrace.

    Temps libre : Evening free

    Activité : The ladder into the pit at Khor Virap is steep and narrow, about 6 m down. We order the afternoon around the museum's closing day, confirmed with your final itinerary. The Armenian Genocide Museum is closed on Mondays and on 24 April; on those days we visit the open-air memorial and swap the museum to day 13 or day 14 morning.

13. Jour 13 : Geghard and Garni

    Yerevan to Geghard Monastery and Garni Temple, then back to Yerevan

    • Environ 2 h de route
    • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
    • Nuit : Yerevan
    Détail du jour 13

    We leave Yerevan at 8:30 am to reach Geghard at about 9:30, ahead of most day tours. The monastery sits at the head of the Azat Valley and is partly cut into the cliff: some of its chapels are carved out of the living rock, and a spring still runs in one of them. Geghard and the upper Azat Valley are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If a choir is singing in the rock chapel, stay and listen. Then twenty minutes down the valley to Garni, a Greco-Roman temple of the 1st century AD on a promontory above the gorge, rebuilt in the 1970s from its fallen stones. Lunch is with a family in Garni village, where you watch, and try, lavash being slapped onto the wall of a tonir, the clay oven sunk into the floor. We are back in Yerevan by mid-afternoon, with time for the Vernissage market or the History Museum, and meet again in the evening for a farewell dinner.

    Compris

    • Geghard Monastery with your guide
    • Garni Temple entry
    • Lavash baking and lunch with a family in Garni
    • Farewell dinner in Yerevan

    Option plus facile : The van drives down into the gorge to the basalt columns, so you see them without the climb back up.

    Option plus active : Walk down into the Garni gorge to the Symphony of Stones, cliffs of hexagonal basalt columns, and back up: about 3 km with about 100 m of descent and climb.

    Temps libre : Late afternoon free

14. Jour 14 : Departure from Yerevan

    Yerevan to Zvartnots International Airport

    • Environ 18 min de route
    • Petit-déjeuner
    Détail du jour 14

    There are no activities planned today, so you leave whenever your flight does. Many flights from Zvartnots International Airport (EVN), about 12 km west of the centre, depart in the early hours or early morning, and we drive you to the airport at whatever time your flight needs; your guide checks the time with you the evening before. If you fly later in the day, leave your bags at the hotel after check-out and use the morning: the Matenadaran, the institute of ancient manuscripts, the History Museum of Armenia on Republic Square, or a last coffee on Northern Avenue. The ruins of the 7th-century Zvartnots Cathedral stand beside the airport road; with a flight after midday we can stop there for half an hour. Book any flight home. If you would like more days, ask us for extra nights in Yerevan or a private extension south to Noravank and Tatev, quoted separately.

    Compris

    • Drop-off at Zvartnots International Airport (EVN), at any time

    Temps libre : Free until your airport transfer

    Activité : Any flight time works; for the Zvartnots Cathedral stop, book a flight after midday.

Faune et météo : We run from May to October because the Georgian Military Highway over the Jvari Pass can close for snow from late autumn to spring. Baku and Yerevan are hot in July and August, so we sightsee in the mornings and leave the afternoons free; Baku is also known for strong winds off the Caspian. Kazbegi is cool and can be cloudy at any time, so Gergeti is timed for the morning.

• Baku3 nuits
• Sheki1 nuit
• Sighnaghi1 nuit
• Tbilisi2 nuits
• Stepantsminda1 nuit
• Tbilisi1 nuit
• Dilijan1 nuit
• Yerevan3 nuits