Dilijan Geological Museum and Art Gallery

Nobody expects much from a regional museum in a town of a few thousand people, which is why the Dilijan museum is such a pleasant surprise. Founded in the Soviet period as a museum of local lore, it grew an art gallery whose collection includes work by Armenian masters alongside Russian and Western European paintings, many of them donated by collectors with ties to the town. The ground floor covers the region's geology, archaeology and ethnography — tools, costumes, carpets and the mineral springs that made Dilijan a spa town.

It is an hour well spent on a rainy afternoon, and a good way to understand why artists, composers and writers have retreated to Dilijan for a century. Opening days and hours change; ask at your accommodation before you go.