Tatev Monastery is imbued with deep cultural and historical significance

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Tatev Monastery housed one of the most important Armenian medieval universities, the University of Tatev

We’re huddled excitedly inside Wings of Tatev, the world’s longest reversible cable car, a 5.7-km engineering wonder that spans a spectacular gorge connecting Halidzor village in southern Armenia to Tatev village. Careening at a vertiginous 18,871 feet in the tramway, which features in the Guinness World Records, we soak in a surreal landscape of dramatic gorges, flower-spangled pastures and pine forests threaded by hiking trails. Mountains, crowned with swirls of vanilla, hunker into the blue sky.
 
The handsome Syunik province in the south Caucasus region of Armenia, a pint-sized country of three million wedged between Georgia, Turkey, Iran and