Symphony of Stones, Garni Gorge

The Symphony of Stones is a wall of basalt columns lining the gorge of the Azat River below the village of Garni, in Armenia's Kotayk Province. Long ranks of regular five- and six-sided pillars rise up the cliffs, so regular that the rock face resembles the pipes of a vast organ; the place is also known as the Basalt Organ. The columns formed when thick lava flows filled the valley and cooled slowly, contracting and cracking into polygonal prisms, the same process that shaped Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave. The Azat later cut down through the flows, exposing them in section.

The gorge is protected as a natural monument, and the formation is especially striking because of what stands above it. On a promontory at the gorge's edge is the Temple of Garni, an Ionic colonnaded temple usually attributed to King Tiridates I of Armenia in the later 1st century AD and built of local basalt. It is regarded as the only largely preserved Greco-Roman colonnaded building in the former Soviet Union. The temple collapsed in an earthquake in 1679 and was put back together in 1969–1975 using its original stones. It stands within the ruined Garni fortress, one of the oldest in Armenia, which guarded approaches to the Ararat plain.

From the village, a road descends into the valley and runs along the river beneath the columns, passing a medieval bridge. Upstream, the Upper Azat Valley contains Geghard Monastery, partly carved into the rock, which shares the UNESCO World Heritage inscription for the valley.

Getting there

The gorge lies below Garni, about 30 km east of Yerevan; the town of Abovyan is about 20 km away. The nearest airport is Zvartnots International Airport (EVN) near Yerevan, about 30 km away in a straight line.