We took the old military road up to Stepansminda which was a wonderful three hour’s drive through beautiful mountain scenery. It was a cold 8degrees when we got there but slightly warmer on top of the mountain which we had to reach by 4WD on a rough track as the asphalt road was being fixed. We used google to communicate with the driver who again only spoke Russian and Georgian.
He only charged us about $60 for the whole day trip and stopped along the way for me to take photos.
We made our way back to Mtkheta for the night before returning to Tbilisi on the 7th October for our last night in Georgia. I took the metro and ventured into the city that afternoon to witness the festival of Tbilisoba in which troops of children from various regions came to perform in Rika park and girls made flower hair garlands for 5lari – about $2.50. There was wine and cheese tasting and many local products and from the regions for sale all over the old town.I got a picture of the glass presidential palace overlooking Tbilisi. Not satisfied with a traditional palace he built a very expensive and vast glass structure. We stayed in the beautiful old district of Marjanishvili and had a typical Georgian meal that night before Nikoloz who insisted on taking us to the airport arrived the next morning. We were sorry to leave this beautiful and interesting country with so many kind people.
We left for Gori on the 4th October and a trip which normally took 1 1/2hours we managed in less than an hour with
a driver who did his best to try and kill us. I have never been nervous driving in India but he was flying along
in his old car at 140kms and although a good driver at that speed anything could happen. He didn’t really listen
to Maurice’s requests to slow down. We stayed at a guesthouse – Gogi Davashvilis wine cellar – They made only organic wine in special qvevri – clay containers placed under the ground and the wine is without any preservatives or sulphites.
We were joined at the guesthouse by two lovely Polish girls who were on a short holiday from Warsaw and we all had a good time together.
Tengo Gogi’s son showed us the process of making the wine in their wine cellar, just off the dining room.
It was fascinating to see the old methods that were still used and as a 30 year old man he has now dedicated
himself to producing organic wine. His father apart from running the guesthouse keeps bees and 18hives were brought down from the mountains for the winter while we were there.
We took a Maxim taxi the 6kms into Gori town to see the Stalin museum, his train carriage and replica of his house,
all situated in a lovely park. I found a good cafe and we then went to the ethnographic museum.
We had a very lively evening of wine tasting, dinner and more wine and a lot of laughs. At least Maurice could also enjoy some of the pure wine.
The other attraction apart from the Stalin museum was the cave city of Uplitsikhe which the four of us visited with
Tengo however we had a very gusty strong wind while climbing up to the caves which was a bit challenging. It was a
totally different set up to Vardzia but also very interesting with an Orthodox church built at the top of the caves which date from the 7th century.
We were dropped back in town at Cafe 22 and the girls continued to Mtskheta an hour away with Tengo who had recommended a wonderful restaurant to us called ‘Shindagori’ which sounded more Japanese to me but which meant home of Gori and which served delicious Georgian food.
I had wanted to see some Georgian dancing and luckily Tengo who was a Georgian dancer taught at the school which Stalin had attended. In the new sports hall he taught traditional Georgian dancing and it was a privilege to
see these girls and boys who were very enthusiastic about their dancing and some had only just started a few weeks before.
Tango and a girl who had been dancing for 8years gave us a display of a wedding dance. It was nice to see the
traditions of many years being upheld. The lovely boys and girls each shook our hands when they left and a couple
of them introduced themselves in their basic English. We were very touched by it.
One of Tengo’s friends too us on the hour’s trip to Mtskheta from Gori. It was also only about an hour from Tbilisi. We had arranged to meet Nikoloz, one of our previous drivers who was to take us up to Stefansminda to see Mt Kasbeg. We checked into our hotel and the old grandfather who greeted us spoke only Russian and Georgian. Nikoloz rang us and said that he was in Mtskheta and that his car was broken. I took this to mean that it had broken down but it was indeed broken. In the old part of town where we stayed there were many streets blocked off
with bollards and only the residents had the required card to lower them. Unfortunately one lot of these were down when Nikoloz drove in to pick us up and all of a sudden his car was lifted and the bollard had gone through the sump, the oil pump and the pan on the automatic transmission and broke the engine mountings. We were going nowhere with him and he was also going nowhere. We wanted to find him and a very kind local who had been fishing and who spoke excellent English came with us in the taxi to find Nikoloz. We were lucky to find this man later that night and gave him a bottle of wine. Such kindness.
There were no signs to advise of these bollards and a local told him that many cars who were unaware of them had also done a lot of damage to their cars. The dear man was only concerned that we were let down and insisted on finding another driver for us before his friend came and sorted his car out.
Any other time we would have just delayed the trip but it was a beautiful day and we were goingn on to Tbilisi the next day so we left with a substitute driver and kept in touch with Nikoloz while he had his car repaired which he managed over the next day.
Joni the manager from the guesthouse in Kutaisi picked us up three days later to take us on the four hour
journey to Borjomi a picturesque town divided by a river with a large park of one side complete with orthodox
church and steep mountains on either side. Our guesthouse ‘Four Seasons’ was up a steep flight of stairs again
but the staff were very good carrying our heavy bags. I made friends with a ginger pussycat who was very friendly
and came when he was called. I could have taken him/her home.
The driver who picked us up in the morning to take us the the cave town of Vardzia and the enormous Rabati Fortress
had one of the many Japanese import cars which had their steering wheels on the right hand side so being a crazy
Georgian driver (like most of them) he kept me suitably scared when pulling out to see if he could pass a truck.
Rabati was somewhat of a living Fortress with administration offices, restaurants, a wellness centre complete with
hamam and hotel and cafes. It was spectacular in its diversity with fountains, a mosque, church, recreation rooms
and towers. It had a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. From Rabati we went on another hour to the
cave city of Vardzia which is mostly uninhabited now. There was one roped off area with planted flowers and
grapevines where someone lived. We had a hard climb to get there and we managed another few hundred steps up and down to the bottom again. We had again been lucky with the weather. It was misty in the mornings in the mountains and the leaves had begun to change colour for the autumn. Many people were harvesting walnuts and hazelnuts common to many regions.
We were surprised to learn that in the 12th century there were 16million inhabitants of Georgia but over time and with the wars the land had been divided and now there are only 3.5million people living in Georgia.
The drive up into the mountains to the north of Kutaisi was very scenic. We were stopped by the police who were looking for inferior grapes which some people would try and smuggle into the town of Ambrolauri and make wine which was then sold as the extremely small amount and expensive wine of that region. The grape grown there was a very rare one and normally cost $100 or more a bottle. Our driver was a bit miffed as he told them that they could see he had three tourists in the car but they made him open the hatch anyway.
Oni was a pictureque town surrounded by forested mountains. Many of the old houses in Oni were deserted and falling apart and most young people had left for the cities but there were a few new houses and a few being restored.
The ‘Gallery guesthouse’ we had chosen was very atmospheric with traditional Georgian furniture and artifacts. There we met Tamara a Georgian and her husband Luca who came from Campobasso the city next to where we used to stay in Roccamandolfi. He couldn’t believe we knew where it was. We had great discussions over the time there and it was very interesting to listen to Tamara’s stories of how she grew up in Soviet times and the difficulties they faced which was something so foreign to us growing up in Australia.
Oni was a small town with the river Rioni flowing past it and surrounded by beautiful mountains and small villages.
We climbed up behind the village one day and through a small village where we saw a woman chopping a load of wood.
She motioned us to wait and came out with an armful of large red apples for us. We were intringued to see a UNHCR refugee tent beside her gate and used as a carport for a Mercedes car!
We were lucky to have chosen this guesthouse which was kept in a typical traditional Georgian style. They also had a large area where they grew tomatoes, gourds and other vegetables and kept rabbits and chickens. Their lovely German Shepherd Bombora was trained to bring in his bowl for food, bring in the wood and open and shut the main door. He was a lovely dog. There were a few dogs who seemed to roam the streets but they all looked well fed.
The family were extremely friendly and were keen for all of us to experience Georgian life so we made bread and sweets the traditional way and in Temori’s grandparents house also on the property we had a dinner at night with music and dancing and toasts. It was more like staying with family. Every meal had such a variety of foods and breads with fresh butter and cheese and unlimited amounts of Chacha (their Schnapps)and red or white wine and good drinking water. We limited ourselves to two meals a day which I don’t think they could understand.
The small museum was interesting especially as there was an enormous painting of Stalian overlooking the
sea in Armenia. A lot of the artifacts referred to wine making which everyone seems to make in the village
and ripe black grapes hung around most of the houses, deserted or not ready to be picked.
The guesthouse also had bikes for us to use so we made the most of it and cycled around the whole town
and into the next village. A group of fourteen German kyakers arrived for a couple of days to tackle
parts of the Rioni river.
We farewelled our Perth friend who had decided to take a Matrutschka to Ambrolauri and Joni arrived the following day from Kutaisi to take us to Borjomi 4hours away.
What a difference 12hours made. We left Batumi on the 26th September to pouring rain and very rough seas.
From the central station we could barely see the city which had been so clear the previous days. We were
glad to have our long train trip that day. We discovered by it took so long to Kutaisi when the train stopped
at every station.
The train was an old soviet style one – very wide aisles and seating was quite comfortable (the seats were
realatively new) and when the train drew in there was a rush to sit in the direction of travel.
The conductor was a jolly fellow who gave out instructions along the way in Georgian. Several women came on board at various stations with buckets of snacks and bread for sale but I hardly believed my eyes when two women paraded up and down the carriages with fresh fish complete with a hanging scale. A few people bought them but the fish smell lingered a bit.
The new station in Kutaisi didn’t have a lift and the stairs were very steep. Not great with our amount of luggage. After half an hour of battling with our Maxim app to get a taxi we arrived at Guesthouse Veneto which belonged to Caritas and had been renovated into smaller rooms and bathrooms. It had been a grand old house and we could see what it had been like previously. Sofia who worked there was like a ray of sunshine and spoke good English and Russian and was very helpful taking us to the beauty salon and arranging hair cuts, colour and pedicures. Prices in Georgia were very cheap for most things and we only paid less than $80 for everything. The guesthouses all have washing machines so we managed to catch up with the washing. One day was a bit cool but otherwise we were very blessed with sunny, warm weather overall.
We spent a couple of days around the small city and walked up to Bagrati Orthodox church on the hill overlooking
the city. I also found an Italian coffee machine in a cafe which was not always an easy thing in Azerbaijan or Georgia.
In Azerbaijan they mostly drink tea and in Georgia it was Nescafe but I chose Turkish coffee which was preferable
if I couldn’t get an Italian coffee and reminded me of Kopi Bali – just not swallowing the last mouthful.
Everywhere were persimmon trees laden with fruit as well as apple and pear trees.
We hired a taxi the next day to take us to Motsameta monastery which was nestled in the hills above Kutaisi.
Joni the guesthouse manager spoke Italian thankfully so we could communicate and we arranged for him to take
us in his comfortable BMW 4WD up to Oni in the low Caucasus the following day. We stopped first at Gelati Monastery which was a large complex in the process of being restored. Another Australian who appeared at the guesthouse (only the 3rd person we discovered in our many years of travel from Perth and Ken decided to join us for the 2hour trip into the mountains where we stayed for three days.
Joni told me that Georgians only wanted peace. Four wars over the last 25years had taken their toll on Georgia
and the catch up was very slow. Food and dinners in Georgia were very cheap with several dishes, bread, mineral
water and a couple of glasses of red wine costing about $20-25. The tomatoes in Georgia were exceptional – dense and so very tasty, so I consumed kilos of them. A traditional meal usually consisted of cut tomatoes,
crunchy cucumbers, bread and large slabs of homemade cheese.