Tatev Monastery sits on the edge of a deep canyon in southern Armenia. To get there, visitors ride the longest cable car in the world without a stop - 5.7 kilometres swinging across the canyon, with the river far below. The monastery itself is more than 1,100 years old.
Geghard Monastery is something even more unusual - parts of it are carved straight into a solid cliff. The builders dug into the rock itself to make chapels with stone columns. Inside, the air is cool and quiet, and the carved walls glow when sunlight comes through narrow windows.
Many monasteries are decorated with khachkars - stone slabs covered in tiny carved patterns of crosses, flowers, and knotwork. No two khachkars are exactly the same, and a single one might have hundreds of carvings. Master craftspeople spent years on a single stone.
These buildings were built over a thousand years ago, by craftspeople who worked with simple hand tools - chisels, hammers and ropes. Yet the buildings have stood through earthquakes, snowstorms and centuries of weather. Visitors today can walk inside the same halls.
