Category: Caucuses – Georgia

Some observations after a week in Georgia:

Black is by far the most popular colour of clothing;

Both sexes have great hair but with a weird practice of dying it very black.  There was a smattering of bright red heads in Tbilisi mind;

It’s rare to see a smile, that’s what being under the yoke of Russian imperialism for 200 years will do to you. However, they really are the loveliest people.  

Very limp handshakes mind  

We headed away straight after breakfast again as we intended to stop at Mtskheta, another one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the and is located at the confluence of the Kura and Aragvi rivers. 

We parked at the outskirts of the town – thankfully as closer into town the place we packed with tourist busses.  First stop was the Samtavro Monastery, a UNESCO world heritage site.  It was here that the Cappadocian maiden Nino, took refuge who bought Christianity to Georgia.  With her cross of twigs bound with her hair. 

From there it was a wander around the very touristy but beautiful town.  The main Cathedral in the town was the oddly named Svetitskhoveli Cahtedral another UNESCO world heritage site finished in 1029. The grounds were lovely with the roses in bloom.  We then wandered down to the river – nothing to see except the Jvari Monastery up on the hill. Our next destination. 

The Monastery was built in the 6th Century utop the hill with commanding views across the valley. And you guessed it, another world heritage site.  As with other religious sites we visited, the monastery was active with priests chanting mournful hymns.  The site was beautiful, contrasting with the dark thunderclouds storming in from the north. 

We drove to our home for the next 3 nights in the cute wine town of Telavi.  Dits preferred it over the main town of Sighnaghi which was a good call.  Our room was on the first floor of a century old, character filled house. We headed into town for dinner and to a 5 star rated restaurant picked by Dits.  I was getting more and more sceptical as we walked deeper and deeper into the industrial part of town.  The ‘restaurant’ was closed.  I checked the rating – 2 reviews.   Probably the mum and her sister. Back into main part of town with a bit of hangry brewing we found a place and after a salad and pizza plus a couple of games of cards; all was good.  Dits was also enjoying her nightly 2 glasses of wine.  I still wasn’t drinking.  I wasn’t missing it and being so busy during the day meant it made life easier.  

The next day the plan was to explore the museum and then do a wine tour in the afternoon. The lodging came with a lovely breakfast which was an unexpected bonus.  Fresh bread; tomatoes and cucumbers; frie eggs and some lovely coffee. Perfect start to the day. We walked into town – again noticing the large number of dogs.  We started off at the information centre but the three ladies in the stifling room were not a lot of help.  From there we walked across the road into the impressive Telavi History Museum. The walled complex contains the palace of the King (17th-18th centuries), which is the only royal palace that has been perfectly preserved in Georgia; the residence of King Archil II; the church built for Erekle’s son, Levan; a royal church (9th-10th centuries), the king’s bath, an underground tunnel, a wall, and the Ketevan Iashvili Art Gallery.  The art gallery was controversial when it was built – they basically dug it into the hill of the complex.  It contained part of the collection of a famous Georgian artist named Ketevan Iashvili.  She must have had a huge home or kept a lot of the art in storage.  It certain was an impressive collection. 

The palace was relatively spartan – it must have been freezing in winter when the temperatures in the area can get well into the negatives. There was also a school off to the side of the complex – nice to hear the sounds of kids playing which hasn’t really been a noise we have heard a lot of in Georgia. After spending an hour or so in the complex we wondered off to see the famous Giant Plane tree – a 900 year old Oriental plane tree. Not that impressive compared to the trees we saw in North America. 

We had booked a wine tour at 4 at a local winery called Sesikeli Winery.  We thought it was best to get some food in use before getting stuck into the wine so grabbed a feed before walking the 30 mins to the venue. Thankfully we did because it absolutely bucketed down during our meal.  It was still lightly drizzling for our walk but nothing we couldn’t handle.   The winery was a house – the grapes were grown a little way out of town on a 1 hectare block.  Our host Simeon produced the wine; and chacha in his house.  There was a Canadian couple there for the tour as well.  Simeon followed the traditional Kakhetian method, which has been used for over 8,000 years centred on the qvevri—a large, beeswax-lined clay vessel called buried underground. The process relies on natural fermentation and extended skin contact to create deep, tannin-rich amber and red wines, free from artificial additives.   The skins are kept on the grapes in the qvevri for 6 months giving the wine the orange colour and distinct flavour. 

The process is mostly manual – even heating of the skin over the corks to seal them.  Simeon produces about 6000 litres of wine and 500 litres of chacha (made from the grape skins, seeds and stems).  We went into a little room for the tasting and spend a lovely 45 minutes chatting and trying the wines and chacha.  Simon has spent 6 years in the UK in the mid 2000’s – there was no work in Georgia – driving a fork lift.  He could not gather the $10k to buy his way into the US, only managing $5k which got him into the UK.  The French couple, Valerie and Julien, were on a similar itinerary to ourselves.  We bought a bottle of the orange white (30 GEL) and combined with the 80 GEL for the tour,  great value for some lovely time with a local. We had a busy day of travel ahead of for our return journey back to Tbilisi the next day so headed home and watched a couple of episode of Widow’s Bay (great) we were in bed early. 

Another lovely breakfast in our BnB before heading off to the very cool Gremi Monastery perched on top of a hill.  As we were there early we had the place to ourselves apart from the monks who were chanting in the chapel.  After that it was a relatively short drive to our next Monastery – this time atop a lot more substantial hill with an incredibly steep road to get to it.  I have no idea how anyone could use the road in winter when I imagine it’ll be pretty slippery.  The Nekresi monastery was a functioning monastery with monks living onsite.   Again they were in the middle of morning prayer so we privileged to watch and listen.  The monks did not seem that enamoured with visitors though.   The monastery had a very old wine making area with at least a dozen qvevris so at full capacity they would be producing a lot of wine.  

After tha it was off to the tourist hotspot in the Kahketi region, namely Sighnaghi.  A beautiful town enclosed by a 5km wall with records showing it bing inhabited from the mid 18th century.  We grabbed some lunch and then wandered around the town trying to avoid the tourist throngs. We noticed once again the large number of Asian – Japanese and Chinese – tourist in Gerogia.  On the way out of town we took a slight diversion to visit the highly lauded St George’s Monastery of St Nino.  While we thought Sighnaghi was busy, this was a whole new level of busy.  I guess being a Saturday there were a lot of day trippers from Tbilisi. Certainly seemed that way given the huge number of large busses. The monastery was originally built in the 9th century but has a lot of remodelling done.  It is famous because of the many St Nino relics there.   Nuns are obviously much better gardeners than monks given the quality of the gardens. A really beautiful place and one that we would love to visit in a quiet time.

It was then a 2 hour drive back to our hotel in Tbilisi for our early pick up by our driver to Yerevan the next morning

We got up early to get out of Stepantsminda before the avalanche of trucks from Russia arrived. We’d already decided to give the Juta track a miss as the weather had completely closed in. 

The drive was a relative doodle compared to the journey up.   We still had to be very mindful of all the potholes and still encounted the holes odd truck but we did the journey in half the time of the journey up. 

We stopped at the same roadside cafe for a cup of strong Turkish  coffee ($3) and then back on the road.  Getting into this.  We stopped at a very Soviet styled city called Gori to check out the famous Stalin Museum.  He was born in the town as Joseph Dzhugashvili but changed his name to Stalin which means Man of Steel!!  Sums him up.  The museum was ok – a bit odd that the man was memorialised but hey I guess it’s a tourist attraction so brings the tourists. 

We had lunch in a local cafe and then got back on the road and off to our fancy room in Hotel Memoire in Kutaisi, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It was pretty miserable when we go there but thankfully found a park right outside the hotel.   A slight hitch in that we had booked for the next 3 nights and not that night.  They found a triple single room for us and agreed we would move into our grand room the following night.  The room was lovely with views across the river to the town’s famous Bagrati Cathedral. 

We decided to head out into the miserable weather and find a cafe to grab a coffee. The main square was shut off due to the due to the upcoming Independence Day celebrations. We walked down to the very fast flowing Rioni River.  We found a cafe on the banks and sat and watched the turbulent water.  While there we noticed a cable car heading up the hill overlooking the city. 

So 3 GEL each later we were cabling our way up the hill admiring the views of Kutaisi.  From the top it was a 15 minute walk through some lovely old houses to the Cathedral.   The Cathedral was pretty busy – the front door was guarded by a couple of elderly female bull terriers shaking a begging plate at all those entering.  The Cathedral’s here in Georgia, while beautiful, are not as opulent inside as the South American ones. Thank the Russians looters for that.  

We decided to walk back the 30 minutes back to tue hotel as the weather had fined up.  Poor Deryn went bottom up on a slippery bit of road and was really lucky not to do some real damage. We managed to find a cafe nearby for another lovely Georgian meal. 

The weather was terrible the next day so after an amazing breakfast in the hotel we decided to stay close with any excursions.  We managed to dodge the weather to find a local museum that had a few interesting nicks and nacks.  It was then back to the hotel and our new double bedroom hotel suite to chill for the rest of the day. 

Breakfasts in Georgia are rarely before 830 so any early departures are difficult.  We got away at 9 and headed to the Prometheus Caves first which opened at 10.  The drive there was lovely although this is where we first encountered the Georgian habit of letting their livestock (except sheep as they are too dumb) roam the streets.  Numerous times we had to stop or drive slowly to get round a cow or dog that was sleeping in the middle of the street.  The grass verges were often full of horses, pigs and the odd goats.  Later in the trip we saw cows grazing on the grass growing on elevated barriers between the motorway!!

The caves were impressive although the tour group at about 30 odd was a bit too large to really get the best out of the caves. And for some reason the 300m boat ride wasn’t on – perhaps the water was too high from the rain. We were followed through the entire 1.4km underground walk by a trio of dogs. 

After the cave it was off to the Okatse waterfall and canyon. Google Maps wanted to take us cross country so after a couple of false attempts we decided to go old school and follow the street signs.   The waterfall was OK – the landscape reminded us of the Blue Mountains in Sydney.  There was a zip line offer which looked great but unfortunately we didn’t have the time. 

Next it was off to Okatse Canyon. It was a 2.3km  walk from the entrance to the canyon and then a 2km walk along the canyon.  Taxis were on offer -15 GEL each but we decided, somewhat unenthusiastically, to walk. It was a pleasant downhill walk (will be up hill back!!) to the canyon.  They had built a steel walkway long the cliff of the canyon so you could see the river 70 or so metres below your feet.  I know a few people that would struggle on the walk.  It was beautiful and definitely worth it. We thought about a return taxi but unfortunately we had forgotten our cash.  Good for the step count!

Driving back into Kutaisi, we passed huge, hulking ruins of legacy Soviet factories and decrepit housing blocks obviously built to house the workers. Must have been awful back in those dark days. 

It was close to 5 by the time we made it back to our hotel.  We were both starving so getting some food was urgent – basically breakfast and a bag of crisps was the intake for the day.   The great thing about Kutaisi, and our experience in Georgia, is that’s it’s never hard to find a decent meal.  Off to Telavi and the wine region tomorrow. 

Dits had arranged the car rental to be dropped off at our apartment at 9am so we were up nice and early to pack up and be ready.   We waited curbside for about 10 minutes before the car arrived.  When we went to pay, we had a problem – he wanted $600 when we were expecting half the amount.  Turns out it was the car rental that Deryn had cancelled a month earlier.  The guy took it very well.  We then had to grab a Bolt to the car rental place that was expecting us at 10 (and whom Deryn thought was dropping off the rental).  When we got to the address, we could not find the rental.   We got a different location every time we put the address into Google Maps.  Very odd.  Finally, we got hold of someone from the rental who sent us a gps link – the rental was literally 100m around a corner. We went and grabbed some breakfast from the café chain Paul’s before heading off at 10am.  Interestingly the car was nearly empty – much like all the scooters in Sri Lanka that we rented.  We filled up (similar to Aus) and off we went.

The roads were OK although the drivers were very aggressive in their passing.  We drove to the outskirts of Tbilisi before stopping at a Carrefour to grab some essentials.  Then it was into the worlds.  We stopped at Ananuri Fortress which was a bit of a tourist trap – a Saturday outing for the locals me thinks. The fortress was OK but a bit too busy to enjoy so it was back on the road.  The road we were travelling on is called the Georgian Russian Highway, the only road link between Russia and Georgia.   We were warned that the traffic could be really bad and that the roads were full of potholes.  So far it hadn’t been that bad. There were a lot of restaurants on the side of the roads – certainly a lot more than petrol stations.  We stopped at a lovely café overlooking a river for a feed.  Some beans and the local favourite of mushroom Khinkali.  Quite delicious.  While sitting on the deck, a convoy of massive trucks passed us heading in our direction.  Damn. 

Damn indeed.  We were now locked into a nightmare.   It took us nearly 2.5 hours to travel the 65km to Stepantsminda.  The convoy of trucks was endless – thankfully only coming in 1 direction.  This wasn’t coincidental – trucks are only allowed to travel one way during set times to prevent gridlock at the many hairpin turns.  The state of the road was unbelievable – potholes big enough to destroy any car unfortunate to drive into it.  I have no idea how they are going to repair or upgrade the road.  Then there were the overtaking locals in cars who had the view that they had the right of way over anyone including oncoming traffic.  I was driving so would duck behind an overtaking car and hope like hell that we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way.  Some of the tunnels – used only winter – looked even more damaged than the summer roads.  Passing through the ski resort of Gudauri was interesting.  Loads of new hotels etc so it looked like it would have been busy in winter.   How the hell did people get there thought??  The hairpins bends were a nightmare for the big trucks. We finally made it to Stepantsminda, exhausted.  We pledged to do the return journey early to avoid the trucks.

Stepantsminda was a cute alpine village at 1800m.  There was a mix of run-down buildings and new builds.  The highest peak was Mount Kazbek (5033m) and Mount Shani (4,451m) so there was plenty of snow around which made it a chilly 6 deg in the village.  Our AirBnb was a cute little place – once again looked better inside than out.  We unpacked and then set off for a wonder around the village. The peace of the village was destroyed by the endless stream of trucks.  The Gergeti Trinity Church silhouetted by the setting sun looked amazing and something that we looked forward climbing to tomorrow – weather permitted. We had a lovely meal at the most popular restaurant in the village – Samani. 

Thankfully the weather was fine when we go up at 630.  The early starts are the benefit of our early nights. We grabbed a quick brekkie at home – not before I burnt all the hair of my left arm trying to light the gas heating stove.  We walked through the village of Gergeti to get the the start of the hike.  There was 2 ways up – we decided to take the steep way up and the less so down.  First stop was the Gergeti Tower (2100m) halfway up.  The views were stunning including spotting what looked like Griffon vultures ring the thermals.  We met a group of Japanese ladies on the path – have noticed a lot of younger Japanese tourists; and to a lesser extent older Chinese tourists, in Georgia. 

The views from the Church (2250m) were amazing. The church itself was beautiful.  Inside a monk was chanting – virtually all the churches we have visited have monk chanting continuously.  Must be hard work.  The journey down was less impressive than the walk up – we should have gone down the same way – but we were escorted by a couple of local dogs.  The dogs in Georgia are mostly wild, or cared for by the community, tagged with yellow tags and also castrated / neutered.  They are all big dogs and look pretty healthy.

We headed home for a snooze and then it was back to Samani for several hours to play som cribbage and have an early dinner.  We decided to see what the weather was like in the am to see if it was worth doing the hike to Juta as if it was raining there was no point.  When we woke at 6am it was miserable to that made the decision easy.  Off to Kutaisi.  We left at 730 am to clear pothole ridden roads.  Fingers crossed it remained that way!!

Day 1

This trip was a bit of a weird one because we really didn’t know until the last moment whether the trip would happen – thanks to the temperament of the US president. Thankfully the heads of the other Gulf states talked him out of it. So, after a short sleep due to an amazing Split Enz concert at the Tik Tok centre, we flew out to Dubai at 6am on the 19th of May. 

We had a 12 hour stop over in Dubai so headed to a hotel for some sleep before getting a taxi back to terminal 2 for our budget (Dubai Air) flight to Tbilisi. The airport obviously served the Middle East and Sth Asia as the crowd matched the destinations. Our flight got called so Dits and joined the queue. I asked Dits about the religion of Georgia – Orthodox Christian was the reply. We both wondered why so many of our fellow passengers wore turbans and veils.   Something wasn’t right.  I checked the board again – the queue we were in was a flight to Amman, Jordan.  Wrong gate!  By the time we got to our gate (thankfully only one over) they were calling our names.  Well, the easier one of the two – Bliss!!   Dodged a camel there.

The flight to Tbilisi was just under 5 hours.  Looking out the window, we could see a lot of snow in the highland of Georgia, but it was very green in the valleys neat Tbilisi.  It’s not mandatory to prove that you have travel insurance before entering the country – we were a bit nervous whether our bland Amex note would suffice but the very friendly customs girl just waived us though after the obligatory photo. Dits had pre-sorted the Bolt app, so we did not have to haggle with the dodgy locals trying to sell their cheap taxi rides.  The ride into the old town and our AirBnB took 30 minutes with Liam Lawson behind the wheel. It’s going to be fun driving around this country later in our trip. 

We had a bit of trouble finding our apartment – insert url.  We had a photo of the entrance however upon eventually finding it, it looked like it had aged 20 years.   While the building was decrepit – like a lot of buildings in the old town – the apartment itself was lovely.

We decided to try walk off some of the jet lag by getting our SIM cards and some cash. We headed into Liberation Square, a mere 100m from our apartment to sort. There was a lot of activity in the square – flashing lights on cop cars and a whole lot of building going on.  Preparation for Independence Day on 26 May when Georgia became independent from the Russian Federation in 1917.  It was ‘retaken’ by the Soviet Republic in 1922 and then reestablished independence in 1991.  They had another stoush in 2008.   Interestingly there were quite a bit of “Fuck Russia’ graffiti around the place.   We grabbed a couple of MAGTIC sims (about $30 for unlimited data over 1 month) but could not find an ATM. Every Bank of Georgia ATM on google maps didn’t exist. It was fine though as eftpos was everywhere.   I eventually found one while Deryn was browsing a local market.

We walked for about 14km exploring the old town. We were amazed at how many of the buildings appeared as is if they we about to topple over and yet people were still living in them. I would hate to think what would happen to the old town if an earthquake hit.  Fingers crossed.  There was also quite a few old, mostly tagged dogs sleeping everywhere, cared for by the local communities.  The highlights of the afternoon were the leaning clock tower in Shavteli Street; the Anchiskhati Basilica – Tbilisi’s oldest church built in the 6th century and the Bridge of Peace.  We stopped for a coffee in the very cool vegan called Café Leila.  It was so good we returned there for dinner.   

On the return home from dinner, we encountered a lot of soldiers preparing for the upcoming celebrations.  What struck us was how young they appeared and how all the tall soldiers were in front and the short arses at the back.  Interestingly they were all in camouflage fatigues.    

Day 2

Had a better night sleep so were eager to go but unfortunately nothing opens in Tbilisi until 9 am.  We had breakfast at Paul’s – a recommendation from the AirBnB host. Great omelettes and coffee. It was then up the famous Betlemi Street Stairs and 340 steps to the aluminium (formerly wooden) statue of the Mother of Georgia – she holds a bowl of wine to welcome friends and a sword to defend her homeland.  You realise that defending the homeland is a constant theme given the yoke of the nation to the north.  It was a relatively leisurely walk and was great for enjoying the view across Tbilisi.  Unfortunately, the famous Narakila Fortress was closed for renovations.  So, we grabbed the cable car down ($3.50 for 2) and after wandering around the very touristy Metekhi Church we decided to hike up the hill to check out the impressive Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi.  Also known as the Semeba Cathedral

The cathedral certainly was impressive.  It was constructed between 1998 and 2004.  The grounds are impressive although I hate that walking into the Cathedral you run a gauntlet of beggars.  On that note we have come across very few beggars in the Old Town.  Apparently, it’s a policy to move them on in areas where there are plenty of tourists.   We headed back to our apartment for a well-earned rest before heading down to the famous sulphur baths. We grabbed a couple of chicken Lobiani (pasties) for lunch.  Cheap and cheerful.

We tried to find the cheap public baths but decided to spoil ourselves with the private version.  For 150GEL (about $80) you got a private bath plus showers and an adjoining room for an hour. Also meant you could do away with togs. It was lovely although spending an hour took a little bit of effort.  Dits grabbed a 30 min massage after ($30).  We had a lovely early dinner at Makmani afterwards.  Eating out in restaurants here is a fair bit cheaper than Sydney if you keep away from the touristy areas. For example, our meal at Makmani – a shared starter, a couple of mains and 2 glasses of wine for Dits was GEL107 ($55). The food was particularly good.

We headed away early the next morning to walk to a famous backpackers called Fabrika which had been a conversion from a warehouse.  It was certainly very funky and looked like a fun place to stay. $30 for unlimited wine and shots for party games night.  We then took the scenic route to the Georgian National Museum.   

The museum was interesting – Georgian fauna was once remarkably diverse and included hyenas, wild cats and some massive boars.  The degree to which the country had been dominated by the Russians was confronting.  Since the 2008 exchange, 20% of Georgian territory is still occupied by Russia.  Russia is supporting the separatists in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia and has a lot of military bases there.  We head up to Stepantsminda tomorrow morning which is close to South Ossetia.  Let us hope the Ruskies behave.