Garni Temple

Garni Temple tickets and tours: which one to book

Garni is about 30 km east of Yerevan and almost every visit is made by road, either by taxi or private driver or on an organised day trip. Entry is paid in cash at the ticket office by the gate, so no advance booking is needed; there is no online ticket for the temple alone. The classic day out pairs Garni with Geghard Monastery, partly carved out of the cliff a few kilometres up the same valley, and almost every tour from Yerevan covers both in a half day with a driver and often a guide. Many add a stop in a village home to watch lavash, the Armenian flatbread, being baked in a clay oven, sometimes with a lunch of local dishes and a shot of homemade fruit vodka, and a visit to the Symphony of Stones, the basalt columns in the gorge below the temple.

Longer itineraries combine Garni with Lake Sevan, or with Khor Virap and its view of Mount Ararat, the Azat reservoir and the Noravank monastery. There are also evening versions, horse rides from the village and hikes along the gorge to the ruined Havuts Tar monastery on the plateau above. Private drivers are inexpensive and give more flexibility. Public minibuses run from Yerevan's Gai bus station to Garni village, but returning in the evening can be awkward. The entry fee is normally not included in tour prices.

Visiting Garni Temple: what to see and how to behave

The temple is the only largely intact building from the Greco-Roman age in the former Soviet Union and the best-known symbol of pre-Christian Armenia. It is usually attributed to King Tiridates I in the first century AD and associated with the sun god Mihr, though some scholars believe it was a tomb. It survived the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, perhaps because it served as a royal summer house, but collapsed in an earthquake in 1679. Most of the blocks remained on the spot, and it was rebuilt between 1969 and 1975, with new plain stones replacing the missing pieces so the original carving is easy to tell apart. The temple stands on a high podium at the edge of a triangular promontory above the gorge of the Azat River.

A broad staircase of nine steep steps leads up to the colonnade of 24 Ionic columns, and the frieze and ceiling are carved with acanthus leaves, lion heads and vine motifs. Around the temple are the remains of the fortress of Garni, including a cyclopean wall from the Bronze Age, foundations of a royal palace, a seventh-century church and a Roman bathhouse with a mosaic floor of sea creatures, protected under a modern roof. The temple is now the main shrine of Armenian neopagans, who hold ceremonies here, especially at midsummer. Below the promontory a steep road leads down into the gorge, where the Symphony of Stones displays its basalt columns rising like organ pipes; allow an hour on foot or take a taxi down and back.

Garni Temple: opening hours, ceremonies and the best time to go

The site is open daily from morning until early evening, staying open later in summer; check locally for the current hours. Arrive in the morning or in the late afternoon, when the low sun turns the grey basalt golden and before or after the main flow of tour minibuses from Yerevan, which peaks around midday. Late spring and autumn are the best seasons, when the gorge is green or turning colour and the weather is mild;

at about 1,400 m above sea level the site is cooler than Yerevan in summer, though still sunny and exposed, and in winter it can be cold and snowy. The neopagan festival of Vardavar in summer and the midsummer and spring equinox ceremonies draw crowds of participants dressed in white. Allow an hour for the temple and the ruins, plus an hour or two for the Symphony of Stones. Geghard lies about 10 km further up the valley, and a full day can add Lake Sevan.