Tblisi with the tour group

Today is a city tour of Tbilisi with my group. Fortunately most of the stops today are places I never visited previously.

Day starts with an iced latte which I haven’t had much of lately.

We meet our local tour guide Tamara who will be showing us parts of Georgia. We board a tour bus that stops at the church on the hill in the city. Metekhi Church is very crowded inside because there is a service today. I don’t spend too much time indoors but the hill does offer great views of the city.

We walk down the hill and past a piece of the Berlin Wall that has been gifted to the city due to the Georgia’s role at the end of the Cold War.

We wait in a long line for the cable car to take us up the hill to see the Mother of Georgia up close. My friend and I attempted to do this previously but ended up the wrong cable car. I am glad I finally get to make the trip.

We arrive on top and have great views of the city. An accordion player finds out many of us are from the USA and plays an american song for us. After viewing the very large Mother of Georgia we use the path to the stairs down into the old town. The path eventually leads us down to the waterfall in the middle of the city, something I also missed while sightseeing the other day.

We view a waterfall, sulphur baths and then take a break for lunch. We unfortunately pick a tourist trap spot that has a hard time dealing with a larger group. While the food that does arrive is good, some end up leaving hungry because many of our food items are never delivered. We watch large parties arriving after us get plates and plates of food delivered but not us.

We are also introduced to the toastmaster (Tamada). The toastmaster is a statue with a drinking horn that is a reproduction of famous Georgian colchi relic found. In Georgian culture the toastmaster leads a feast and makes toasts for the meal. It sounds like the toastmaster also gets pretty toasted.

We continue our tour to old town and the nearby Sioni cathedral which has a relic of the famous St Nino’s cross that I kept hearing about and also it holds the burial site of the high respected but recently deceased patriarch. The patriarch is of the highest regard in the Orthodox Church, like their version of the Roman Catholic pope.

After our tour ends the bus takes us back to the hotel but we all decide to branch out in smaller groups for other adventures for the day. Not ready to eat I go with a group to do a private wine tasting across town. It takes us longer than normal to get there by the Bolt car service because many streets are closed due to the upcoming independence day festivities. The driver takes us as close as we can; we walk the rest of the way.

The gentlemen giving us the wine tasting is from USA and now lives in Georgia. We, a mix of Americans and Canadians, entertain him with our silliness. He gives a dinner recommendation nearby.

We enjoy the streets empty of cars. Dinner is in a charming underground homestyle restaurant where bills are tallied with an abacus. I wish I had photos of this because it is rare seeing anyone using an abacus these days.

Next stop is at a speakeasy with no menu. At this bar the bartender makes the drinks for you off vibes. You mention flavors and liquors you like and the bartender makes something perfect for you. Even the skeptical are happy with what is made for them.

We make one last stop on the way back to the hotel at the wine window. Only one glass of wine before we notice drips of rain. We make it back to the hotel just before the sky erupts again. We were lucky today with the lack of rain after I’ve had so many days of it.

Time for bed as we are off tomorrow to the Kehketi wine region for more adventures.

Soviet Sanatorium Tour in Tskaltubo

During the Soviet Occupation after WWII, Georgia, a soviet territory at the time became a popular spot for healing sanatoriums due to the sulphur springs that occur naturally here. In Tskaltubo, the town near Kutaisi, many of these sanatoriums were built and used as a healing destination. At the end of the Cold War, the majority of these buildings were abandoned. Many are decaying quickly and some become makeshift apartment buildings for unhoused people. While there are a couple that are privately owned and restored, most just exist these days for exploring by people who are fascinated by crumbling architecture. We visit a few of these buildings with a tour guide. The guide takes us to some of the “safer” buildings but we still have to explore with caution since there is broken glass everywhere, the non-existance of railings and roofs that look like they may collapse at any moment. We enjoy imagining the abandoned buildings in their former glory.

Our last stop is at a now abandoned Tskaltubo train station.

After the short tour we return to town and have a nice lunch at Palaty, a restaurant recommended by our guide.

We spend the rest of our time in Kutaisi visiting the hilltop church and exploring town.

We get notice at 8 PM that our day tour and transfer to Tbilisi is cancelled due to bad weather. We are very disappointed because not only do we miss visiting the canyons, we are left with no ride to Tbilisi last minute. We scramble to find alternative transportation. There are some very cheap options like the small Marshrutka vans that we still have not used during our travels but settle on the citybus that we used to first arrive in Kutaisi. It is disappointing that our day tour is cancelled but at least we now plan to arrive in Tblisi much earlier. The bus ride is fine except it is late and it is not entirely clear where the actual bus stop is. We gather at this green square and it is raining on and off and wait. There are no signs to tell you that the city bus will actually stop here. We start talking to other’s who are also confused but waiting for the same bus. Taxi drivers in the area confirm we are in the correct place but with no sign we are still apprehensive. Eventually the bus does arrive and we make it back to Tblisi.

Luckily the next hotel in Tbilisi is more modern. I was getting tired of walking up five flights of stairs multiple times a day to a not as nice apartment.

Arrived in Kutaisi

We wake early to take our 9am bus to Kutaisi, Georgia. This bus is newer and clean but they have strict rules about what bags they let you take to your seat so we have to quickly decide what we need for comfort for the next 4 hours. The driver swerves and occasionally honks and yells at cars going too slow but also at cars that pass him up while he is in the fast lane. Crazy drivers seem to be a theme of Georgia.

The apartment we have rented in Kutaisi isn’t the best place I’ve stayed in. It’s clean but lacking some things of convienence that make a stay more comfortable (like having to climb 5 flights of stairs or missing dish towels). Fortunately the host happily communicates with us through a translator app and we are in a central location.

We drop our bags off and walk around the corner to meet our day tour that is scheduled today. It is now shoulder season so our group tour ends up being a private tour instead. Initially it feels awkward but we soon value the personal attention.

The city of Kutaisi used to be a more popular tourist location due Kutaisi having direct international flights to certain cities but with the opening of the high speed rail between Tblisi and Batumi Kutaisi has become become less popular.

We start our tour in Central Park, a charming park next to the Colchis fountain and the Meshkhishvili theater. The Colchis fountain was installed in 2012 to feature the historic Colchi kingdom. All of the gold emblems on the fun fountain are enlarged reproductions of artifacts found during excavations of the colchi period.

While we explore town we are told local stories about some of the people honored with statues. We admire the street art and learn about one district that was settled by the French. We see a Catholic Church in its historic beauty before it is due to be “renovated” to an Orthodox Church. When it is converted, they will destroy all the original catholic parts. While not the only religion in the country, Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the most popular.

Kutaisi is a sleepy town compared to Tblisi but has its own charm. This boy with a hat sitting on the bridge is a character in a popular Georgian film.

Our tour guide takes us through the local market and we learn about the Georgian spices and treats.

At tour ending we ask our guide for restaurant recommendations and she recommends the restaurant in the Magnolia Hotel, a charming authentic Georgian food experience. I am excited to try new dishes. I enjoy most of what we try except the chicken dish I ordered as my main dish. My stomach is still uneasy from the day before and I am having a hard time with the grease content of the recipe. I will be happy when my stomach is back to normal.

We are tired from traveling today so we return to our flat for an earlish night, enjoying a nightcap from one of the few bottles of things we have picked up to sample along the way. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain all day so we re-arrange our excursion plans last minute to turn tomorrow into a lazy in town shopping day. It proves a good idea because it does start raining early in the day. I brave the rain briefly in the morning to get a decent cup of coffee but eventually we have to eat so we choose an art cafe not too far from our flat. We share a pizza and delcious salad.

We visit the market afterwards. Thank goodness the market is mostly under a covered area. First we visit an underground clothing and accessory market, much of it catering to older conservative women. We then return to the food market where we buy some spices and various goods. We spend some time trying to shop in the cheese section but it is impossible to get the attention of one of the cheese women since she is currently occupied with yelling at a woman at another booth right now. We return later to buy some samples of cheese from a woman who is not yelling.

We feed some street dogs hot dogs and are tired of the rain. We return to the room to try the pomegranate wine we have purchased yesterday from Armenia. I am not sure if we have a bad bottle or the wine is just really that bad but we end up pouring most of it down the drain. A wine has to be pretty bad for us to waste and this vinegar wine is terrible.