Armenia's forest resort — they call it the Armenian Switzerland, but the pine trees, 12th-century monasteries, and artist colony make it entirely its own thing
Dilijan sits in a forested gorge of the Aghstev River at 1,500m in northeastern Armenia, surrounded by one of the most intact deciduous and coniferous forest ecosystems in the South Caucasus. The town itself is a charming tangle of 19th-century Russian-era merchant houses, a renovated old quarter (Sharambeyan Street) with artisan workshops, a painters' colony that dates to the Soviet era when the Union of Artists maintained a residency here, and a contemporary creative scene that includes the UWC Dilijan International School. Two major UNESCO-considered monasteries — Haghartsin (12th–13th c.)…
Dilijan's forests were a refuge for Armenian cultural and religious institutions during periods of invasion. The Haghartsin Monastery was founded in the 10th century and expanded under the Zakarian princes who controlled much of Armenia in the 12th–13th centuries; its manuscript library (now dispersed to Yerevan's Matenadaran) was one of the most significant in medieval Armenia. Goshavank was founded by Mkhitar Gosh, one of Armenia's greatest medieval scholars and the author of the first Armenian law code. Soviet-era Dilijan was developed as a sanatorium and creative retreat — the composers A…