We drove about twenty miles south of Yerevan, but still in the Ararat Plain, to a hillock at the foot of Mount Ararat. We visited the Khor Virap Monastery. It's located about 110 yards from the Turkish-Armenian border. Mount Ararat is a snow-capped mountain with two long-dormant volcanic cones. It lies in Turkey now, though formerly in Armenia. It is the tallest mountain in Turkey in almost 17,000 feet while Little Ararat is 12,750 feet high. Mount Ararat is considered or claimed to be the landing place of Noah's Ark.

Khor Virap started out as a castle and royal dungeon near the ancient capital of Artashat around 180 BC. The name means "deep dungeon," and was where King Tiridates III threw Gregory Lusarovich for practicing Christianity instead of the pagan religion at the time. Gregory was kept in the dungeon for thirteen years. He was only let out when the king got ill and the king's sister urged him to release Gregory, who eventually cured the king. According to legend, that was when the king converted to Christianity which led to Armenia becoming the first official Christian country in the world in 301 AD while Gregory became Gregory the Illuminator.

Khor Virap has since seen many uses such as a chapel and monastery, a Middle Ages education and learning center, and an important pilgrimage site. It also survived a colossal earthquake in 1679. It is still used for regular church services today but from the crowds, I would say that tourism is its main function these days.

You can see Khor Virap Monastery on the right side as we approached the monastery for a visit.

The church evidently has some peculiarities so far as its orientation and such. We managed to visit without too many other tourists.

Off to one side of the main church is a chapel building. It houses the "deep dungeon" where Gregory the Illuminator was kept for 13 years. You can see the chapel and then the dungeon which is 20 feet straight down and 14 feet of room at the bottom. It was unpleasant just to see it.

As interesting as Khor Virap Monastery might have been with the church, chapel, courtyard, and other features, the view was the highlight for us. We spent more time just admiring Mount Ararat than we spent reviewing the monastery.

Armenia is a haven for stray cats who all seemed to lead very nice lives. Georgia was more of a stray dog country, but Armenia had cats all about. They all looked well fed and comfortable. The Khor Virap monastery cat below even shared her bench with us, so nice!