Dilijan is called the 'Armenian Switzerland' and, for once, the nickname isn't much of an exaggeration: it's a mountain town sunk in a sea of forest, with fresh spa-town air, a fast-flowing river and green slopes that blaze gold in autumn. After the dry, volcanic landscape of much of the country, arriving in Dilijan feels like entering another world. Since Soviet times it has been a place of rest, with sanatoriums and retreats for writers and artists, and it still keeps that calm feel of a place to take a deep breath.
The tourist heart is Sharambeyan Street, a stretch of old Dilijan restored by the Tufenkian foundation, with stone houses and carved wooden balconies, craft workshops, a gallery and a small museum that recreate the town of another era. All around, Dilijan National Park hides some of the country's most beautiful medieval monasteries, such as Haghartsin and Goshavank, tucked away in the thick woods, along with Transcaucasian Trail paths linking lakes, springs and forests.
This guide helps you make the most of Dilijan: how to get there from Yerevan or Lake Sevan, which monasteries to see and how to reach them, what things cost, where to walk in the national park, and why this resort town also became home to an international college that brought students from all over the world to these forests. It's a perfect stop to slow down between the country's big sights.
Dilijan is a young town compared with Armenia's great sites, but its valley is full of ancient history: medieval monasteries from the 10th to the 13th centuries stand in the surrounding forests, such as Haghartsin and Goshavank, the latter linked to the scholar and fable writer Mkhitar Gosh. For centuries the area was forest and villages, and from the 19th century, and above all in Soviet times, Dilijan became a celebrated rest and spa resort, famous for its air and mineral waters, with sanatoriums and artists' retreats. In the 21st century, the Tufenkian foundation restored the old quarter on Sharambeyan Street, and the opening of the international UWC Dilijan college (2014) put it on the world map. Its story of forests, monasteries and rest is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Armenia's water and forest: Lake Sevan, one of the world's great high-altitude blue gems, with Sevanavank Monastery on its peninsula, and Dilijan, the 'Armenian Switzerland' of wooded valleys, spa-town air and hidden monasteries.
Read the history of Lake Sevan and Dilijan →They depart from Erevan, 70 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
There is something almost unreal about arriving in Dilijan. After miles of parched plateaus, volcanoes and bare fields, the car suddenly drops into a valley of damp forests, fast rivers and green slopes, and you get the feeling you have crossed an invisible border. It is no accident that Armenians call it 'Armenian Switzerland': in a country ruled by stone and sun, Dilijan is the realm of trees, water and shade.
The valley of the Aghstev River, in Tavush province, is covered by one of the richest forests in the Caucasus: beech, oak, maple, linden and hornbeam, now protected by Dilijan National Park, some 34,000 hectares of dense woodland, mineral springs and wildlife. That cool, humid microclimate, so different from the rest of Armenia, is the key to the whole story of the place: first it drew monks seeking seclusion, then the sick and artists in search of fresh air, and finally students from all over the world.
Compared with the country's ancient cities, Dilijan as a town is young. But its valley has been inhabited and held sacred for many centuries, and hidden among its trees are some of the most beautiful medieval monasteries in all of Armenia.
Dilijan's real ancient history is not in the town but in the forests around it, home to two gems of Armenian medieval art: Haghartsin and Goshavank. Both belong to the great flowering of Armenian religious architecture between the 10th and 13th centuries, the same one that produced Haghpat, Sanahin and Geghard, when the kingdom regained a degree of autonomy under local dynasties after centuries of Arab rule.
Haghartsin, tucked away in a forest clearing north of town, was founded and expanded between the 10th and 13th centuries, largely under the patronage of the Kyurikid dynasty (a branch of the Bagratids) and the princes of the region. Its main church, Surp Astvatsatsin, was completed around 1281, and its vaulted refectory is a masterpiece of stone engineering. Legend has it that the name comes from an eagle that circled overhead during the consecration: 'the dance of the eagles'. It was a centre of monastic life and learning, and today, after a major restoration funded in the 2010s by the emirate of Sharjah, it looks almost as it did in its heyday.
Goshavank, in the nearby village of Gosh, is named after one of the great intellectual figures of medieval Armenia: Mkhitar Gosh (c. 1130-1213), theologian, fabulist and jurist, author of the 'Datastanagirk', the first Armenian legal code, whose fables are often compared to Aesop's. Gosh founded the monastery in the late 12th century and is buried there. The complex brought together churches, a library and a school, and it still holds its most famous treasure: a khachkar (cross-stone) carved in 1291 by the master Poghos, with lacework so fine that it is known as the 'embroidered khachkar', considered a high point of Armenian stone art.
For centuries, what is now Dilijan was a handful of mountain villages living from farming, livestock and the forest, in a territory fought over by empires: Persian, Ottoman and finally Russian. After the Russian Empire annexed the eastern Caucasus in the early decades of the 19th century, the region came under Tsarist administration, and that is when the valley began to gain fame for something else: its air.
Russian and Armenian doctors found that Dilijan's climate —cool, humid, sheltered, filled with the scent of the forests— was good for respiratory illnesses and for convalescence. On top of that came its mineral water springs. Little by little, the place became a health and rest resort, with guesthouses and visitors who came to 'take the air'. Dilijan the spa town was born, a calling that would shape its entire 20th century.
That image of a sanatorium town, a place to heal and rest surrounded by nature, is the second great layer of its identity, after the monastic one. And it was the Soviet era that would take it to its peak.
Under Soviet Armenia (part of the USSR from 1920-1922), Dilijan enjoyed its golden age as a centre for rest and creative work. The state built sanatoriums, rest houses and holiday complexes where workers, scientists and artists from all over the Soviet Union spent time recovering. The town was granted city status in 1951, and its population grew on the back of this rest industry and the bottling of its mineral waters, famous throughout the region.
Dilijan was also a haven for artists. The Union of Composers of Armenia built a well-known 'House of Creativity' there, and its forests welcomed musicians, writers, painters and filmmakers looking for inspiration and peace. That cultural aura became part of the country's memory: for several generations of Armenians and Soviets, Dilijan meant summer holidays, fresh air, healing waters and artistic creation. It was even immortalised in Soviet cinema, in the comedy 'Mimino' (1977), whose character jokingly boasts that Dilijan's water is the second best in the world.
With the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the economic crisis in independent Armenia hit hard: many sanatoriums closed, the rest industry fell apart and the town drifted into a kind of slumber, its lovely old quarter falling into disrepair. Dilijan seemed doomed to live on nostalgia. But the 21st century had an unexpected twist in store.
Dilijan's new chapter was written by restoration and philanthropy. In the early 21st century, the Tufenkian foundation —set up by Armenian-American businessman and patron James Tufenkian— restored a stretch of the old town, Sharambeyan Street, bringing back its stone and timber houses, its craft workshops and its old-world village feel, and created the Old Dilijan Complex with accommodation and restaurants. All of a sudden, the old resort once again had a heart people could see and visit.
The decisive leap came in 2014 with the opening of UWC Dilijan College, funded by Armenian philanthropists Ruben Vardanyan and Veronika Zonabend as part of the worldwide United World Colleges network. Hundreds of students from dozens of countries began studying for the International Baccalaureate, living together for two years on a modern campus set into the forest. The arrival of this international community transformed the town: it brought investment, cafés, cultural events and a cosmopolitan atmosphere unthinkable for a former mountain sanatorium. At the same time, the Central Bank of Armenia set up its training and conference centre there, reinforcing that image of a 'town of knowledge'.
Today Dilijan blends its different layers like few other places in the country: the medieval monasteries among the trees, the memory of the Soviet spa and its mineral waters, the restored old town, the Transcaucasian Trail paths crossing the national park, and an unexpected international life. Above all, it is still a place to breathe deeply: the green corner of a land of stone, where history is read between the leaves.
