Day 40: Diligent in Dilijan

This blog is becoming very seldom.  I promise to do better.

The Caucasus has been a blast.  I have bored through it like a worm, from Batumi on the Black Sea coast to Svaneti high in the greater mountains, to Kutaisi (city of Medea of Jason and the Argonauts fame), to the cave city of Vardzia, then down into Armenia and several decadent days in Yerevan.  Last night I slept on the gentle shores of Lake Sevan, and tonight I am in the wooded hills of Dilijan.

Perhaps that last is why I am suddenly motivated to blog.  This place has long been a haunt of writers and poets. In Soviet times people also came here for the Sanatoria that still bulk on the hillsides above town.  The town is laid along a deep valley beneath forested hills.  It scarcely has a town centre worth the name.  It is very serene and peaceful, although still rather cool.  Summer has come to Yerevan but is taking its ease there and has not yet climbed up to Sevan and Dilijan.  That's all to the good, as it means tourists are few and I have this place almost to myself.  I plan four days here.  Tomorrow I will be a Good Little Tourist and go and see some more monasteries.  After that I shall be very lazy again until it's time to move on.