The Khor Virap Monastery, located south-east of Yerevan, offers a famous photo setting: The holy Mount Ararat, the peak where Noah's Ark is said to have touched land after the Biblical great flood.

Masses of basalt columns rise vertically from the valley floor for 100 metres and more, as if glued together like gigantic organ pipes. The geological phenomenon in the Garni Gorge is called the ...