June 13: Telavi, Sighnaghi, and Tblisi, Georgia
We began the day with a visit to the
Alaverdi Monastery, which was built in the 11th century, and the first of many really old churches we would visit over the next few days. Most Georgians are Orthodox Christians (Georgian Orthodox, I assume).
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| Nino, our guide in Georgia. Enlarge the picture and read her shirt |
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| Typical Georgian housing |
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| Alaverdi Monastery |
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| Another view of the monastery |
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| One of the entrances to the monastery. The artwork is several hundred years old |
While we were visiting the monastery, I almost killed myself. I was in a courtyard that had several horizontal tombstones (see picture below). I was trying to take a picture of something and started backing up. I tripped over the closest tombstone in the picture and fell backwards. Fortunately, the only thing that hit the tombstone was my ample butt. For the rest of the day our guide, perhaps fearing a lawsuit, inquired of my condition about every 15 minutes.
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| The tombstones that tried to kill me |
After visiting the monastery, we headed for the town of
Tsinandali, and a large estate and winery.
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| Local traffic near Telavi |
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| Estate at Tsinandali |
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| Tasting at the Tsinandali winery |
There were a lot of school groups visiting the estate, and they found the foreign tourists fascinating. The kept taking pictures of us with their cell phones, and eventually we had a couple of them pose with us.
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| Posing with strange foreigners |
Our next stop was another winery, this one over 300 years old. The owner gave us a demonstration of Georgian wine making, which involves fermenting the grapes in huge urns buried in the ground. To my tastes (which are not very refined), Georgian wine is passable, but I'll take western wine, given the choice.
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| The round things are covers for the underground urns |
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| The owner gets some wine for us out of the urn. |
We then took a long drive through the Georgian countryside to the town of Sighnaghi
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| A Soviet building in a town along the way |
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| Lots of families grow their own grapes |
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| A shop along the way |
Sighnaghi was much nicer than any of the other Georgian towns we had seen up to this point, reminding me of Italian towns in Tuscany.
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| Overview of a part of Sighnaghi |
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| The Crew |
Sighnaghi is a local tourist destination and had a lot of parks and vendors.
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| Cotton candy vendor |
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| A small busload of small locals |
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| Playing the Georgian version of Three Card Monte |
In various places in Georgia, we had seen people selling things that looked like sausages. It turns out that they called
Churchkhela, and are actually walnuts in long tubes filled with thickened grape juice. They also sold round flat pieces of dried fruit. I didn't try either, so I can't really comment on them.
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| Not sausages |
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| Sighnaghi town hall |
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| If you know what the sign says, let me know |
While in Sighnaghi, we made our third wine stop of the day at a winery/bar/restaurant called
Pheasant's Tears, which is actually owned by an American.
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| A fermenting pot |
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| In the wine cellar |
After sampling more wine (our driver wasn't drinking), we headed towards Tblisi.
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| Another view of Sighnaghi |
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| Soviet-era housing on the outskirts of Tblisi |
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| Georgian Ministry of the Interior, on the outskirts of Tbilisi |
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| No comment |
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| Our hotel in Tblisi |
Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia, and has a population of about 1.1 million. We arrived very late in the day, and the schedule had us overnighting there and leaving the next morning, to return a couple of days later. Even though an "official" tour of the city was scheduled for our return visit, I did some urban hiking to take in the sights.
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| A building near the hotel. |
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| Heydar Aliyev (yes, the Azerbaijani leader) Park, next to our hotel |
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| Metekhi Church, built in the 13th century |
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| The Peace Bridge, a pedestrian bridge across the Mtkvari River |
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| On the Peace Bridge |
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| Theater and Exhibition Building in foreground, Presidential Palace in background |
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| Closer view of the Theater and Exhibition Building |
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| A statue of Ronald Reagan |
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| Another view of the Presidential Palace |
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| Transportation and advertising in central Tbilisi |
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| Tbilisi Public Service Hall in the background |
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| Another view of the Tbilisi Public Service Hall |
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| More traditional architecture in Tbilisi |
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| Parts of the old city walls in foreground |
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| Freedom Square |
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| Yes, the buildings are crooked |
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| More tomatoes, cucumbers, and grilled meat.... |
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| ...chased down with a refreshing Zedazeni beer. |
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| View from my hotel room of Narikala Fortress, overlooking Tbilisi | |
June 14: Tblisi, Mtskheta, Gori, and Gudauri, Georgia
Overnight we had some thunderstorms, which was the first rain we had encountered in the Caucasus. In the morning, we headed to the town of Mtskheta (not a misprint), about 10 miles from Tblisi. As we were driving out of Tbilisi, our guide observed that we had to take a detour, because some of the roads were closed. (Why am I mentioning this? Stay tuned.)
In
Mtskheta, which is considered a "holy city" by the Orthodox church, we first visited the
Jvari Monistary, situated on a hill above the town. The monastery was built between 590 and 605 AD.
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| Approaching the monastery |
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| The monastery up close |
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| The dome of the monastery. A little faded, but the artwork is only 1500 years old. |
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| In the monastery |
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| A view of Mtshketa from the monastery |
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| An actual organ-grinder, sans monkey |
We then went into Mtshketa to visit
Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. The cathedral is much more modern than Jvari Monastery, having been built in the 11th century. It is considered to be the most important church in Georgia.
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| One of the walls in the church compound |
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| Above one of the church entrances |
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| Inside the church |
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| A minute before I took the picture, the priest was talking on his cellphone |
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| Another view from inside |
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| A church visitor |
Our next stop was the city of Gori, the birthplace of Josef Stalin. This is probably the only place in the world where you can find people who like Stalin, and it is home to what is presumably the world's only remaining Stalin Museum.
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| On the way to Gori |
In Georgia, we saw a lot of modern, glass, police stations. Our guides said they were designed like this to demonstrate "transparency".
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| Police station in Gori |
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| At the Stalin Museum |
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| A statue of Stalin at the museum |
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| One of the exhibit rooms |
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| The furniture from Stalin's office |
There were actually some exhibits dedicated to some of the not-so-nice things that Stalin did.
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| A room depicting the conditions in Siberia (I think) |
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| Stalin's birthplace, encased in a larger building |
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| Stalin's birthplace |
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| The train car that Stalin used |
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| Bathroom in the train car |
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| Stalin's bedroom in the train car |
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| Get your Stalin souvenirs here! |
After lunch, we visited
Uplistsikhe, a "cave town" near Gori that was inhabited from the early Iron Age until the 15th century AD. It also includes a church that was built in the 9th or 10th century AD.
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| A general view of Uplistsikhe |
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| Carvings in an archway |
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| Inside the church |
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| Inside the church |
Our next stop was Ananuri, site of a fort and church built in the 17th century on the shores of a lake. Below are some shots of the fort/church as well as some views of the interior of the church.
From Ananuri, we headed north on the Georgian Military Highway to the resort town of Gudauri.
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| Scenery on the Military Road |
Our accommodations in Gudauri were in a ski lodge, and I had the luxury of a two level apartment. I'm sure it was romantic, but I had to climb down and back up the stairs every time I had to go to the bathroom.
Next: Days 8 and 9--
Gudauri, Tbilisi, and into Armenia
