El Garden Restaurant Yerevan
Transparent domes
Look at these funky metal and plastic transparent treehouse domes. So strange that I've lived about 500 meters from this place for a long time, and only found hem recently! They are so inviting, especially on a cool or cold evening with a beautiful sunset, when you don't want to miss the sky-show, but also want to be warm.
There are many such domes of different sizes here on Tsitsernakaberd hill, in an area about 400m in perimeter and 1060m above sea level. The hill rises over western parts of Yerevan and its name means "Castle of Swallows", which comes from Pagan times, when there was a whole worshiping complex with temples dedicated to the Pagan Armenian Goddess of beauty Astghik. The legend says there were trained bird-messengers back then, carrying letters from Astghik to the temples of her lover and the God of fire and thunderstorm Vahagn, hundreds of miles away, spread across the Armenian Highland. Then they'd carry his replies back to Astghik.
Another great thing about this hill is that you can see all of the surrounding mountains very well, including Ararat, Aragats, Yeranos etc. I haven't discovered yet which ones of them can be seen from the higher domes, the transparent geodesic tree houses, but I think Ararat should be visible. There's another interesting POI nearby, which you can see from here very well: the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex built in 1983 and which looks like an alien ship. The Armenian Genocide museum is nearby, too.
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