Noravank

Noravank sits at the end of a narrow gorge of brick-red limestone, and the approach — a winding road between cliff walls — is half the experience. In late afternoon the rock turns the colour of embers and the honey-toned church seems to burn against it.

The two-storey church of Surb Astvatsatsin, finished in 1339, is the reason architects make the trip. Two narrow cantilevered staircases climb the façade with no handrail and no visible support, leading to the upper chapel.

Much of the carving is the work of Momik, sculptor, miniaturist and architect, whose reliefs of God the Father and the Virgin above the doorways are among the most distinctive in medieval Armenian art.