The city of Ani has a very curious history (and it's worth noting from the get-go that all accounts of it have their particular spin).

In 971, it replaced Kars as the capital of the Armenian Bagratid dynasty, and grew into a city to reckon with:

"Ani became an important crossroads for merchant caravans and the city controlled trade routes between Byzantium, Persia, Syria and central Asia. Merchants and craftsmen flocked to Ani from Armenia's older cities, accompanied by a flow of population from the rural areas of Armenia. In 992 the Armenian Katholikosat moved its seat to Ani: at the start of the 11th century there were 12 bishops, 40 monks and 500 priests in the city. By the 11th century the population of Ani was well over 100,000, perhaps as high as 200,000, and its wealth and renown was such that it was known as 'the city of a thousand and one churches'."


Of course, that didn't last. Nothing lasts.

Ani passed to the Byzantines, then the Turks, then the Georgians. But the Georgians gave it to a notable family, the Mkhargrdzelis, under whose rule the city regained a large part of its former prosperity. The Mongols came, but the Mkhargrdzelis carried on, just switching their allegiance from the Georgians to the new overlords.

By the 1330s, a series of Turkish dynasties had taken over. They built in Ani, too. But what really made the difference was that the trade routes shifted south... After 1579, Ani was part of the Ottoman empire. But the population continued to drift away. By the beginning of the 19th century, everyone had gone.

So Ani became a kind of symbol -- to European travellers of romantic adventure; to Armenians of lost glory and inspiration for the future. But the convulsions of the First World War and the Russian revolution eventually led to the 1921 Treaty of Kars, which granted this territory to Turkey. The Akhurian or Arpa river became the new border between Turkey and Soviet Armenia, and Ani ended up on the Turkish side of that border.


To get to what's left of this ancient city, we took the public bus. This is not ideal, because it leaves at 9 am, takes 45 minutes to get there, and then returns at 11.30 -- leaving you just 1.75 hours to look around a large and beautiful site. (There's an afternoon bus, IF there are any passengers... So you can't rely on a later service to get home. We figured this out from a conversation with the driver, aided by a helpful English-speaking fellow-passenger.) At TRY 18 per round trip, it's not a bad price, however.

I'm not sure what the alternatives would have been (apart from hiring a car). You read various things on the internet about getting to Ani that just didn't prove true in our case. For example: "Would-be guides and taxi drivers visit Kars hotels in search of customers." They didn't. There wasn't so much as a leaflet in our hotel.

And again: "Taking a shared van from Kars city center is the most budget-friendly way. You can book the van through your hotel in Kars and pay 50 lira for a round trip." Well, we asked at our hotel about getting to Ani, and one of the few English-speakers there just talked about taking the bus.

So we took the bus... It would have been great to have more time. But better a brief experience than no experience, we thought.

The 48-km ride out is wonderful, with sweeping views of rolling mountains and wide open land. Some of it is cultivated, but the fields are separated by borders of unsown ground, rather than fences. Broad swathes are not cultivated. Here, and in the border strips, a riot of wild flowers paints splashes of purple, pink, yellow, and white.

Every now and again you come across a herd of cows (someone's got to produce the raw materials to supply Kars's vast quantity of cheese shops) or a string of horses.

There's a village not far from the ruins. Many of the buildings have sod roofs, sprouting blonde grass in this fine-weather season. Gaggles of geese waddle round the yards.

Then you reach the old city. I purposely didn't look at too many photos before I went. So I was awed by the backdrop. There's a Lord-of-the-Rings feel to the steep-sided river valley, with its twists and turns, its lace-flecked jade waters, and its ruined bridge. Snow-capped Mount Aragats calmly surveys the scene from the Armenian side the border.








I was also pleasantly surprised at how much was still standing.























And -- perhaps the biggest surprise of all -- there's a heart-warming amount of wildlife...

Scurrying around between the rocks, curiously unflappable, are the pikas.


The river that forms the border is rushy and tumbly, but the valley on the other side of the site is full of the sound of frogs.


The biggest surprise was the birds... So many birds, of several species, clearly raising young in great profusion. It was easy to spot the juveniles. They were the ones staggering round at ground level with their mouths open, some still a bit fluffy round the edges.

So, though I found its rich history and architecture very striking, I think I'll primarily remember Ani for the twitter and chatter of birds... They really love the rock piles (you can see them going about their business in Nigel's video, which gives a small idea of the soundscape).

They also feel very at home in the churches, and I found it kind of moving to hear that continued sound of life where human prayer and praise had been silenced by the centuries. As the psalmist says: "All mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars, every wild and tame animal, all reptiles and birds, come praise the Lord!" (There's a little clip here.)




Tomorrow we head into Georgia. It will be a long day, and a messy, bitty journey. We take with us a large heap of dirty laundry, facilities having been entirely lacking since our trip to the launderette in Ankara. With one day left in Turkey, we'd almost run out of lira, and have just had to withdraw a stupidly small amount to tide us over. Such are the banalities of the traveller's life...

But in return you get to keep the memory of cheeping birds, flying backwards and forwards across the blue space that was once a dome.