Wow… Five countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia) in six weeks. Mehmet Özbalci organized this tour through his company Fantastic Photo Tours, based in Istanbul, Turkey. We used him in 2016 for a tour of Turkey, and liked his approach so much that we decided to use him again for these countries. I thought we would […]
Armenia 4 – Dilijan
We continued our travels along the Silk Road, an ancient network of trading routes between China and the Mediterranean. Enroute to our next hotel in Dilijan, we stopped at the Orbeliani Caravansary, a structure where caravans on this Silk Road used to stop for the night. From the outside (upper left), it is rather unimpressive stone building, so we […]
Armenia 3 – Goris
Enroute to Goris, we got one last view of Mt Ararat behind the Church of Khor Virap, before it disappeared entirely behind a veil of clouds. As we approached this scene, there was heavy cloud cover overhead, and the monastery was obscured in dark shade. Watching the clouds, we saw the possibility of better light coming […]
Armenia 2 – Yerevan, Part 2
We visited the Garni temple, built in the 1st century AD, where we found a pleasant surprise, as our guide knew an employee who had not trimmed the ends of his mustache for 40 years. He was completely willing to pose for us, and only asked to use his camera phone to shoot the LCD image of […]
Armenia 1 – Yerevan, Part 1
The last country of our photographic tour with Mehmet Özbalci is Armenia, where we started with three days in the capital city of Yerevan. It felt like luxury being able to stay in one (excellent!) hotel for 3 nights, and Yerevan proved to have plenty to keep our interest – and our cameras, happy. One of our main […]