Customer Reviews

Armenia: The Bradt Travel Guide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I recently moved to Armenia and purchased this book right before leaving the USA. My interest was mainly to use it to find neat places to go in the countryside, and this book definitely fills that purpose. We live in Yerevan, the capital, which is fairly well documented by the book.
Our second weekend in the country we decided to travel up one of the nearby mountains - wife and three young children - to go sledding in April - and not speaking ANY Armenian yet. All we had to go on was the region map on page 106 and the narative description on the authors travels. We made it to our destination (and two meter deep snow) easily.
Just this past weekend we used the book again to visit an old (1000AD) castle ruins and some monestaries hidden in the forests of the Lori region. The narative in the book was once again precise in all details - our only issue was when we encountered a newly paved road that was described as being in poor condition in the book (time has passed since the writting).
I specially commend the book for those interested in getting out and around to the more remote areas.
The book would be considerably better with maps of every town that the main roads turn in and color pictures mixed in with the text (right now the pictures are all at the center of the book). Yerevan itself is changing rapidly and may not be quite as described, but the countryside is almost identical to when the author visited.

This the first guidebook by a major publisher to this wonderful country. The book has a couple of quirks but makes up for it
with lots of detail and a real passion for the country.
It's a huge leap forward from the 'Georgia with Armenia' book previously published by Bradt. There are maps for each marz (province) and a smattering of city maps - Yerevan, Gyumri and Ejmiatsin. My main quibbles is that the selection of restaurants in Yerevan isn't as good as it could have been, and that the author has a clear fascination for trains which may not be shared by all readers. For example, most of the space devoted to Kapan, one of the nicer regional cities, refers to the trains and carriages stranded there. Otherwise, it's well written and obviously very thoroughly researched. The only place I can see which was missed is the Amaras monastery in Karabakh.

I agree with the other reviewer - it's a good effort and fairly well written. My main issues with this book are 1) that the photographs are incredibly bleak. If I had not visited Armenia last year, I definitely would not have based on the pictures. 2) The Nagorno Karabagh section was very light. It basically seemed like an after thought that was tacked on the last minute.

This is a good book to have if you are visiting Armenia for the first time, so, you get a sense of what everything is and where to go. Compared to some guides about Europe, it lacks the picture/entertaining part. Usually, people see pictures, are attracted to what they see, and therefore decide to visit that particular location. However, lack of pictures only gives history and people may miss out on some great location, city, monument or achitecture because they may not feel moved by only its history. Overall a good book to have, it can be better though.

Published in May 2011, the Bradt Travel Guide Armenia is not only one of very few tour guides for this South Caucasian country, it is also the latest addition. In addition, it offers - following the real political facts - the only English -or German-speaking guide at all a detailed and useful chapters on site Nagorno Karabakh.

The first part (General Information) of the soft cover is divided into two chapters in which the reader is equipped with "background information" and "Practical Information" with a big tool for the planning and subsequent execution of the trip. For timediver ® particularly noteworthy are over 20 single-spaced printed pages, dedicated exclusively to the 1000 year old history of the country, its religion and language, which is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family.

The actual guide represents the second part, consisting of five chapters, "Yerevan", "The Central Province", "The Northern Province", "The Southern Provinces" and "Nagorno Karabakh" composed. Unfortunately, the guidebook for timediver ® 's first trip to Armenia in early May 2011 had not yet appeared, in retrospect I can say that I would have liked it. The roads and property descriptions are detailed and precise, as well as the 30 road maps, city maps and floor plans of various churches and historic assets.

A unique feature is the seventh Chapter is that the now existing for 20 years, "Republic of Nagorno Karabakh" has as its object. Although it is regarded as the de-facto-State, it is not recognized by the international community viewed their territory rather than part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Since Nagorno-Karabakh can only be accessed by Armenia of a chapter in a guidebook is unfit for Azerbaijan. In a travel guide for Armenia is such a sense.

The Bradt Travel Guide offers 17 pages of the "Republic of Nagorno Karabakh". The chapter begins with the "Important Note", which declared it was neither a history book or a political treatise, but simply a guide to the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh itself (RNK) is. Nevertheless, there is the historical background of the Karabakh conflict, a fairly detailed description, which goes back to the 1920s. A peculiarity of the Nagorno-Karabakh is the visa that can be obtained only after the entry into the Foreign Ministry Stephanakert, then later to leave again. The description of the capital city with a map in which all sites are located, enables easy localization. The newly built Hotel Nairi with WIFI in the room has proven to be a good tip (page 272), the timediver ® would like to pass on here. The telephone numbers and opening times of museums including the interesting "Artsakh State Museum" and "Karabagh War Museum" are current. In the "Archaeological Museum of Tigranakert" archaeological sites and exhibits from the first centuries after Christ, with 09.00 - 19.00 clock also applied generously. Especially helpful is a shopping list proves about the dangers of entering mined areas, such as that of Azerbaijanis (Azeris) Aghdam deserted city of ruins.

At the end there is an Armenian Dictionary (including pronunciation) and a directory of more English-language literature are two appendices. The internationally unique chapter on Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenian: Artsakh) is the culmination of an already excellent guide-book that deserves a rating of 5 Amazon-stars.

This book is seriously out of date and is geared strictly to the person willing to rent a car to visit the sites described. All information is based on this premise with little information given about other means of transportation, tours, etc. I agree with a previous reviewer that the photos were pretty grim and the author's description of Gyumri (where I spent two weeks as a volunteer) left me wondering why I had decided to go there. Contrary to this, I found the people to be some of the most generous, pleasant and hospitable people I have the privilege of meeting. So much for Mr Holding's description of how he found the country and the people.

I have had this book when traveling in Armenia in June 2010. After having precise and clever Bradt guide in Etiopia I assumed that the editor guarantees the quality. Unfortunately not in this case. There is no question that the book is written with love for country described, its People, customs and culture. Another fine point is very detailed description of the churches and monasteris to be visited in Armenia.
However Armenie is realy a wonderfull country, and it is much more then churches. Here guide misses the point -it properly presents limited possibilities of acomodation in smaller towns, however there are lots of nice places to stay outside Yerevan, which are nonexistent in the guide.
Book is focused on travel in rented car, describing in detail when and where to turn. However with so cheap hire of car and driver, such description is not as necessary as precise information of possibilities to visit nice places, when one alredy arived to destination. I mean nature wonders of Armenia (and most of so precisely described churches ...), which has to be reached by foot. Such information in the guide is very uprecise and often missleading (f.e. mountains and monasteries around Dilijan, mountains, castles and monasteries around Yeghanodzor). If we have had worse weather, we could have big problems caused by wrong directions ... The author seems to underestimate southern Armenia (again Yeghanodzor) and seems that he is not a fun of hiking. Description of hiking possbilities in Pambak mountains or Iljevan mountains is very missliding, as overall impresion of what is on offer there(there is much, however one has to be prepared for some nuances not foreseen in the guide). Not mentioning such nicietes as permament presence of venomus snakes in the south (1,0 - 1,5 m long, however not very agressive), what makes long mountain boots a must there. Information about public transport (realy well developed) is also almost nonexistent in the guide. And why the autor forgotten to write about some very probably satanisctic features of more remote monasteris? Finding them out (when using Armenian magazine devoted to the topic) was exciting - much better then Da Vinci Code.
Taking into account qualities of described Bradt as of Lonely Planet guide, somebody has to write a new, good guide to Armenia. This wonderful country deservs it!