Hello again! We had one more day in Tbilisi and again we were up early to avoid the heat. It turns out they were having a heatwave in Georgia. It was around 36 degrees every day in Tbilisi.
We climbed up to the fort directly behind the old city. We had fun scrambling around and John saw a small snake. Poisonous snakes are common here.
We then wandered through the huge Botanic Gardens for some respite from the sun but it was more like a well-tended forest. We were very hot!
A statue of Mother Georgia towers over the city. In one hand she holds a sword and in the other a cup of wine. These are the symbols of Georgia!
We wandered through a part of the old city that was quite dilapidated. It's not unusual to see people living in buildings that look unsafe to us.
This derelict building was being overtaken by ivy!
I looked at the receipt from a place where we ate and noticed the wording on it. What it says is completely true (see pic below) - there are two parts of Georgia that we can't visit because they're occupied by Russia. If you're interested there's an even more wacky than usual episode of 'No Reservations' with Anthony Bourdain, where he goes to Georgia. They go to the border of this region and learn that the barbed wire fence that divides the Russian-occupied land from the rest of the Georgian land mysteriously moves overnight! This is a rural area and sometimes people wake to find that their cows are now in the Russian-occupied territory when they were in Georgian territory the night before, Someone had to milk their cow through the barbed wire fence. Others have had the misfortune of going to sleep in their house in Georgia and waking to find that their house is now in the occupied area!
We used the heat to spend time in our rooms organising ongoing travel plus we finally got our credit card working! God knows it wasn't through any effort from ANZ. It took them nearly a week to answer me.
We continued to enjoy the amazing food. We found an ice-cream seller that does tricks with the ice cream as he prepares it for you. It was the best ice cream ever, especially compared to the average Georgian ice-cream.
We fell in love with walnut sauce. This is eaten on tomato and cucumber salad, layered inside pieces of grilled eggplant or served a bit runnier with meats. I found a recipe! If you're interested, it's here.
Sighnaghi, our next destination, was a couple of hours away and we wanted to explore the area so we hired a car. Getting one wasn't easy as it's peak season but we ended up with a little Citroen. The biggest challenge was starting the trip in a manual car while driving on the wrong side of the road and finding our way out of the old city but we made it ok. John drove, I navigated and was on pedestrian lookout duty and "keep right!" duty.
We had already learned that lanes are a guide only, that passing when an oncoming car is approaching is ok as everyone will just move over for you and that turning a corner and using indicators are unrelated actions. Oh - and just drive at whatever speed you like.
John was up for the driving challenge though and we arrived safely in Sighnaghi. We found our unmarked guest house at the end of a narrow dead-end lane. There was nobody in sight so we just called out and the owner duly appeared and we were led to our room. It was sensational! It was a really simple room but we were perched on the edge of a spur looking out over the vast plains below which were backed by the great Caucasus Mountains. The view was incredible!
We soon learned that the whole town has spectacular views. It's straddled across a ridge and wherever we walked there were amazing views in many directions. Not only that, the town itself is spectacular. Two- to four-storey houses with wooden balconies and red-tiled rooves line steep cobblestoned streets. Church steeples punctuate the skyline and the lush green of fruit trees, nut trees and forest fill in the gaps.
At dusk the cobblestoned streets were so atmospheric.
Gorgeous old wooden doors were set into walls.
Most places were well-maintained but some needed some serious renovation. These balconies were looking pretty dubious.
The town was touristy but not in a big way. Apparently the Chinese love coming here but they're in lockdown again so it wasn't too busy. Carpet sellers made for colourful displays.
The traditional Georgian sheepskin hats were cool. You didn't have to buy one to get your kicks. For 50 cents you could pose for a photo wearing one!
Four kms of defensive walls runs surround the town. You can walk part of it. We were joined by one of the many street dogs that live here. They're really friendly. This one just joined us for a walk even though it was hot. We always love having dogs walk along with us.
His mate joined us for a bit too.
We walked through a huge gate in the city walls one day and found ourselves in the local cemetery. The graves were really interesting. They have etchings or paintings of people on them. We thought this was a lovely way to remember people.
One hot afternoon we came across this singer in a shady park. All the singers we've heard so far have had really great voices.
The daughter of the owner of our guest house spoke good English and we learned a lot from her. We were talking to her one day when two ladies who had just checked in asked her for some cold water. She just said, "No cold water" and turned back to us and continued our conversation. At the time I thought she was surprisingly rude but we later learned that she detests Russians and these ladies must have been Russian. She gave us many examples of all the bad things that Russians have done. The threat of them lingers over all Georgians continuously.
On one of our walks we found this graffiti which says it all really.
Part of the attraction of this region for John is that it's a wine region. We had planned to go out to some other towns but we thought we'd try a couple in the town first. We walked to one of them and the friendly owner, Archil, showed us around. Georgian wine is often made in quevris, large earthenware pots that are stored in the ground. This one is 2 metres deep.
The owner was doing up his grandfather's house to make it into the winery and it was interesting to see the various stages of renovation of this beautiful old building.
Five minutes after the owner started showing us around, another couple turned up. One of them was clearly an Aussie, the first we'd met since we flew in. We shared some wines, some conversation, some more wines, then some food, then more wines, followed by cha cha, the local grappa-like spirit. You get the general picture. We never made it to the other winery we were planning to go to. The other couple were supposed to drive back to Tbilisi that night. They ended up paying someone to drive the rented car back for them! We had a great night!
At our lodge we met two lovely Austrians, Kat and Melanie. We planned to do a couple of drives to destinations in the area and we invited them along.
Our first destination was Davit Gareja. This is a monastery complex right on the Azerbaijan border. Due to some conflict there, it's no longer possible to visit the caves which was really disappointing as the 10th to13th century frescoes in these are supposed to be amazing. We could still visit the monastery though so we decided to go.
The scenery en-route was really interesting - the treeless plains and hills were eerie at times.
We found some tortoises on the road!
The monastery complex was astonishing - over the centuries monks have carved living quarters out of the caves.
The monastery complex was so beautiful!
I'm not sure why a monastery has to be fortified. It's surely a sign of a history of difficult times.
Women had to wear scarves to enter the small church.
Davit Gareja was the original monk who settled here and it's said that the water that springs from a cave here are his tears. The entrance was blocked to us by a stunning door.
This was as far as we got as Georgian soldiers wouldn't let us pass. Up on the crest of the hill above us, where the caves were, we could see Azerbaijani soldiers patrolling up and down. We were disappointed we couldn't see the caves but the soldiers and the setting almost made up for it!
We found a tree that has berries that look like small loganberries. I don't know what they are but I picked one and it was delicious! The stain from one berry was amazing though!
The next day we drove to Lagodekhi where there is a national park with great walking. The main walk we wanted to do was up to a waterfall but it was a 5-hour return trip and it was now 38 degrees so we ruled that out and walked up to a closer river spot instead. I was a bit nervous - there are ticks here! The funny thing was that I don't care about the spiders and snakes but hate the thought of getting a tick on me. The Austrians on the other hand hate snakes but they have ticks in Austria so this didn't bother them at all.
The forest was beautiful.
These rhinoceros beetles were everywhere.
There was a spot on the river where there's a bit of a pool and picnic tables are scattered around. We found this table that was actually in a shallow part of the river. How cool!
We said goodbye to the Austrians and spent our last day in Sighnaghi catching up on things and exploring the gorgeous town. We started to get to know people - a grizzled old man in the main square always seemed to be carrying small buckets of water across the square. We never worked out why. Sometimes we went to a tiny grocery store and the owner was friendly. One morning we got there early and he was outside setting up. When he saw us his face lit up with a huge grin and he lifted his arms skyward in greeting. He was so pleased to see us. I'm not sure why!
A few times we would be walking down the street and a car would pull up beside us. It was Archil, the winery guy. Like all locals, he just pulled up in the middle of the road and chatted. We were starting to feel like we lived here!
A couple of times we ordered breakfast at our guest house. It was huge! We had rockmelon, peaches, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, cheese, eggs, home-made pancakes that looked like donuts plus local homey and jam. Needless to say, we didn't eat it all!
This is the view from inside our airconditioned room where we sit when we're organising things during the day and it's too hot to be outside. The room itself was far from perfect - the mattress and pillows were stuffed with weird material, the thin sheet had no underlay between it and the mattress and the noisy air-conditioner woke us multiple times a night however these couldn't detract from the million-dollar view.
On our walks we saw so many fruits and nuts growing on trees. There were walnuts, peaches, plums, those loganberry-like fruit, a crabapple-like fruit, figs, something that looked like blueberries, heaps of blackberries plus many others I couldn't identify. There were lots of wildflowers too. Just near our place was a lovely cool, shady spot with seating where mineral water came out of a pipe in a wall.
On our last couple of nights we ate at a restaurant that overlooked the whole town. The food was average but the view was sensational!
My drink isn't actually a cocktail, it's just lime juice and mint, but you get the idea.
We watched a large bug flitting from one flower to another nearby and at the last minute I suddenly realised what it was - it was a tiny hummingbird! It was about the size of a moth. Amazing!
Sighnaghi was a truly captivating town. It was something special. We hope to come back one day!
Hooroo!
Heather and John
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