Things to Do in Yerevan, Armenia: 25 Top Attractions and Places to Visit

The city's main square and the natural place to start exploring Yerevan. Tamanian designed it as an oval framed by the Government House, the Armenia Marriott hotel and the museum complex, all faced with tuff carved with Armenian ornaments. The singing fountains play in front of the museum building. On warm evenings there is a show with music and lights, and the square fills up with locals. The show schedule changes from season to season.

The museum occupies part of the complex on Republic Square and tells the country's story from the Stone Age to the 20th century. If you only have a couple of hours for museums, start here: the collection includes finds from Urartian fortresses, bronze work, medieval manuscripts and one of the oldest leather shoes in the world, found in the Areni-1 cave.

The upper floors of the same building house the largest collection of paintings in the country. Go for the rooms of Martiros Saryan with his vivid Armenian landscapes, the seascapes of Ivan Aivazovsky, and Armenian artists of the 19th and 20th centuries who are rarely shown outside Armenia. The gallery is easy to combine with the History Museum in a single visit.

An open-air market a few minutes' walk from Republic Square. Stalls sell carpets, chased metalwork, obsidian jewellery, wooden backgammon boards and chess sets, ceramics and Soviet badges. It is busiest on Saturdays and Sundays; on weekdays some of the rows stand empty. Bargaining is normal, especially if you are buying several things.

Yerevan's only working mosque, built in the 18th century, when the city was part of Persia. It stands on Mashtots Avenue, and behind its high wall lies a shady courtyard with trees and a turquoise dome. On a hot day it is one of the quietest places in the centre. Visitors are admitted outside prayer times; dress modestly, and women should bring a headscarf.

A covered market where locals shop for groceries and visitors buy edible souvenirs. Try the dried fruit, apricot and plum fruit leather, sujukh (walnuts threaded on a string and coated in thickened grape juice), fresh lavash and local cheeses. Vendors will almost always let you taste before you buy.

This church went up at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, after the devastating earthquake of 1679, and is among the oldest still standing in Yerevan. The church is tucked away among courtyards in the city centre, and it is easy to walk past. Inside it is dim and smells of candles; this is a working church where services are still held.

A tiny 13th-century chapel on the corner of Abovyan Street and the oldest building in the city centre. For a long time nobody noticed it: it had been built into a later basilica and only came to light in 1936, when the basilica was demolished. The large Church of Saint Anna, consecrated in 2015, now stands next to it, and the contrast between the two shows how Armenian church architecture has changed.

The largest cathedral in Armenia, consecrated in 2001 for the 1,700th anniversary of Christianity becoming the state religion; Armenia was the first country in the world to take that step. It stands near Zoravar Andranik metro station. The architecture is modern but follows the canons of Armenian church building, and the cathedral holds relics of Saint Gregory the Illuminator brought from Naples.

A wide pedestrian street linking Abovyan Street with the square by the Opera. Unlike the rest of the centre, it is lined with modern multi-storey buildings full of shops and cafés. By day people mostly pass through, but in the evening, especially in summer, it becomes the city's main promenade.

Another Tamanian design and probably the most recognisable building in Yerevan. Around the theatre are Freedom Square and a park where families stroll and people sit in summer cafés. Across the road is a small pond known as Swan Lake: in winter it becomes an ice rink, and on summer evenings young people gather by the water. If you want to see a performance, check the programme and buy tickets in advance, as popular productions sell out quickly.

A giant white limestone staircase that climbs from the centre to the Monument district. At its foot is a garden of contemporary sculpture from the collection of Gerard Cafesjian; the best-known pieces are Fernando Botero's rotund Cat and Smoking Woman. Inside the Cascade is the Cafesjian Center for the Arts: escalators take you almost to the top, past exhibitions on the way. The upper terraces have the best view of the city and Ararat. The top tier was never finished, but the viewing platform is open. Come at sunset, when the lights of the city come on.

The garden and the staircase are free to enter. The exhibition halls of the Cafesjian Center have their own hours and tickets, which are best checked on site.

A repository of ancient manuscripts and one of the largest in the world. A monument to Mesrop Mashtots, who devised the Armenian alphabet, stands at the entrance. Inside are medieval Gospels with miniatures, scientific treatises and manuscripts in Armenian, Greek, Persian and other languages. Even if you are not a museum lover, the exhibition is worth an hour: you will not see books like these anywhere else.

A small park on Baghramyan Avenue with a pond, little bridges and shady paths. It is a few minutes from the Cascade but sees far fewer tourists, which makes it a good spot for a coffee break between museums.

A park on the hill above the Cascade, crowned by the 22-metre statue of Mother Armenia holding a sword. It was erected in 1967 on the pedestal from which a statue of Stalin had been removed a few years earlier, and the pedestal now houses a military museum. The park itself has old fairground rides and a Ferris wheel, and the viewpoint by the monument looks out over the whole centre. The easiest way is to climb up by the Cascade and walk back down.

One of the few old neighbourhoods to survive: crooked lanes, private houses with vines in the courtyards, stairways and dead ends. It is only a couple of blocks from the central avenues, yet it feels like a different city. Kond is a residential area, so keep your voice down and photograph people and courtyards only with permission.

The house-museum of the director of The Color of Pomegranates stands on the edge of the Hrazdan Gorge. The house was built for Parajanov, but he never moved in: he died in 1990, and the museum opened a year later. It holds his collages, dolls, hats and drawings, some of them made in prison. Even visitors who have never seen his films usually love it; it feels more like the workshop of a mad artist than a conventional exhibition.

The factory stands on the bank of the Hrazdan by Victory Bridge and is visible from the airport road. Brandy has been made here since the late 19th century. Tours take you through cellars full of barrels, explain how the spirit is aged and end with a tasting, usually of two or three brandies of different ages. Tours are by advance booking only, and prices depend on the tasting programme.

The memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 stands on a hill above the Hrazdan Gorge. Twelve inclined basalt slabs surround an eternal flame, and next to them rises a 44-metre stele. The museum under the hill tells the story of the events of the early 20th century in detail, and it is a difficult visit. Every year on 24 April hundreds of thousands of people walk to the memorial with flowers. Allow at least an hour and a half.

This is where Yerevan began. On Arin Berd hill you can see the foundations of the walls and halls of the Urartian fortress, and the museum at the foot of the hill displays a stone slab with the cuneiform inscription of Argishti I recording the founding of the city in 782 BC. The fortress looks out over all of Yerevan and Ararat. Opening hours differ from source to source, so check them before you go.

A quiet park where leading figures of Armenian culture are buried. Here are the graves of the composer Komitas, after whom the pantheon is named, of Aram Khachaturian and of the film director Sergei Parajanov, as well as part of the ashes of the writer William Saroyan. Many of the gravestones are works of art in their own right, so the pantheon is interesting even if you do not know all the names.

A town 20 kilometres west of Yerevan and the spiritual centre of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Its main cathedral was founded in the early 4th century and is considered one of the oldest Christian churches in the world. Together with the ruins of Zvartnots Cathedral on the road from Yerevan, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A colonnaded temple from the 1st century, the only surviving building of its kind in the former Soviet Union. It stands on the edge of a canyon, and you can walk down to the Symphony of Stones: cliffs made of regular basalt columns that look like organ pipes. Garni is about 30 kilometres from Yerevan.

A monastery 10 kilometres beyond Garni, with some of its halls carved straight into the rock. The acoustics inside are remarkable, and if you are lucky enough to hear singing, you will remember it for a long time. Together with the Upper Azat Valley, the monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A monastery right by the Turkish border, 45 kilometres from Yerevan, with the closest view of Ararat you can get. According to tradition, Saint Gregory the Illuminator was held in a deep pit here for 13 years before he converted Armenia to Christianity. You can climb down into the pit on a steep metal ladder. The views are best early in the morning, before clouds gather over the mountain.