Spring Break 2019 in Tbilisi, Georgia

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Spring Break in Georgia, 2019

By

Randall D. Ball

            Late Friday night, Khalil took us to the airport for another of those early-morning (3:00 AM) flights, this time to Doha for a ten-hour(!) layover where the highlight was breakfast and lunch at the same restaurant.  At least the Doha airport is ranked fourth in the world, so not a bad place for a long stay (much better than Jeddah!).  Then we took an evening flight to Tbilisi, Georgia; our total flight time was almost half that of the time spent in the Doha airport.  A taciturn driver from the hotel in Tbilisi met us at the airport and transferred us to the hotel Saturday night.

            Sunday was a day to relax.  Anastasia and I walked around the neighborhood sometime after our late breakfast (we all slept in after not getting much sleep on the short flights the previous night).  She and I were scoping out potential eateries, mostly, but we also walked around a few small parks in the area too.  Then we all had a late lunch at a nearby local restaurant, enjoying some very popular, traditional dumplings called khinkhali, plus a Georgian pizza and some grilled pork.  Grilled pork would become a staple of our meals.  The food in Georgia was very good; we never had a bad meal.  Even the hotel breakfast was good and varied, with eggs (typically, scrambled, hard-boiled, and fried were all offered), potatoes (mashed, salad or dumplings), sausages, cold cuts, cheese, pastries, beets (yes, beets for breakfast—salad too), veggies, fresh bread, and jam. 

            Monday, our tour actually started.  It was snowing in Tbilisi, much to the surprise of our guide for the day, George (George from Georgia), who changed the schedule a bit for us to accommodate the inclement weather.  Instead of the Tbilisi city tour scheduled, we would postpone that for the next day, opting instead for the wine tour in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia, where the weather forecast was more pleasant that day.  The drive did take us into the mountains, so the girls not only saw snow, but they saw it falling (a first for them).  After brief stops at two side-by-side mountain monasteries, the Shuamta Monasteries—the “new” one was 400 years old, we visited the Tunnel Winery Khareba’s, where wine is stored in cave tunnels six miles inside a mountain, about 26,000 bottles, according to the winery tour guide.  We had a brief tour of the winery (only about half a mile of the cave tunnels, if that) and tasted a few samples before heading to the wonderfully-quaint village of Signaghi—the “city of love.”  We ate a huge lunch (also our dinner, simultaneously) there: cooked beans in clay pots, grilled pork and chicken, lamb stew, mushrooms—we were stuffed.  Afterwards, we toured the Monastery of St. Nino at Bodbe, with its pretty terraces and gardens.  It’s run by nuns, and it shows.  It’s a beautiful location, with spectacular landscaping.  Then we headed back to Tbilisi with the sun setting against the rolling hills.  A picturesque ending to a very pleasant day.

            The next day was our city tour, beginning with the new (2004) Holy Trinity Church, an impressive, beautiful cathedral, the third-largest Orthodox cathedral in the world after ones in St. Petersburg and Moscow.  As we drove around town, our guide (not the same fellow as yesterday’s George, and we never quite caught his name, but it sounded a bit like “Broccoli”) pointed out various landmarks, such as the opera house and Tbilisi’s own “seven-star hotel,” the Biltmore.  At one point, he said, “On your left is U.S. Embassy.”  He pointed; it was a McDonalds.  It was also in town where I saw a car with a University of Georgia Bulldogs sticker on it.  Funny stuff.

            Then a drive up a hill took us to the open-air Museum of Ethnography, showcasing village life around Georgia with various houses from past eras.  The highlight for the girls was chasing little lizards there, but bigger animals—namely, stray dogs—were the biggest zoological attraction in Georgia.  The country does well tracking and caring for these strays, which are ubiquitous and mostly friendly, much to Talula’s delight in particular.

            We then drove through Old Town and up a mountain to Mtatsminda Park, a little theme park with various attractions (Ferris wheel, roller coaster, ghost castle, small wax museum, kiddie rides) and some stunning views of the city below.  Here, the animal contact became the girls’ favorite part:  a petting zoo, with rabbits, cats, turtles, pigs, ostriches, horses, cows, goats, a lizard, and a snake.  Talula of course jumped at the chance to hold the corn snake;  meanwhile, Anastasia spent half her time suspiciously eyeing the wandering turkey in case it attacked.

            We had lunch (corn bread, cheese, veggies, chicken in garlic sauce) on the same mountain top before returning to Old Town, where we took a cable car (something else that frightened Anastasia) up to Narikala Fortress.  From there, we made our way down the hill, stopping at the sulfur baths district (a rickety, old, iron, winding outdoors staircase to the waterfall was something else to scare poor Anastasia—today was like Fear Factor for her), crossing the Bridge of Peace over the Mtkvari River, and walking through Rike Park on our way back to the car and then the hotel.

            The following day, we drove to Mtskheta to walk about another hilltop location, Jvari Monastery, with its beautiful views (and strategic military placement in Medieval times).  Then a longer drive took us to Uplistsikhe Cave Town, where the girls really enjoyed climbing around and exploring.  Again, the views were fantastic.  Then we drove to Gori to tour the Stalin Museum, his birth house, and his train wagon.  Propaganda out of the way, we had lunch: corn bread with beans in clay pots and more grilled pork.  From there we returned to Mtskheta (the actual town below in the valley, rather than the earlier hilltop spot) to visit Svetitskhoveli, a cathedral where the robe of Jesus Christ is allegedly kept.  According to legend, a Georgia Jew from Mtskheta was in Jerusalem when Christ was crucified, and he bought the robe from a Roman soldier.  He then gave it to his sister, who became so overwhelmed she died on the spot, still clutching the robe.  They couldn’t get it out of her death grasp, so she was buried at the church with the robe still in her hands. 

            We walked briefly around some markets in the little town and tried some ice cream wine, which wasn’t bad.  Then it was back to the hotel.  Shortly afterward, Anastasia was hungry again (she is a bottomless pit these days), so I took her out for pork shawarma.

            Thursday was a day of surprises.  We headed westward again, passing Mtskheta and heading into the Caucasus Mountains.  As we stopped for a view of the Jinvali water reservoir, we had our first surprise:  the unmistakable sound of a hissing tire.  While our driver “Broccoli” took care of the flat, the girls pet yet another stray dog.  Then we continued up the mountain to the Medieval

Ananuri Fortress on the Aragvi River, which included a pretty tricky climb up castle walls to the tower.  Going down was even harder.  Then we headed further up the mountains; the change from a little drizzle to snow was pretty quick and dramatic.  At 7200 feet above sea level, nearing our destination of Kazbegi, with snow drifts on the side of the road up to fifteen feet high, our next surprise awaited:  the road was closed.  Our guide expressed concern about going onward anyway; as he told us, he was once stranded up there for three days.  So we turned around and headed down to Gudauri Ski Resort, where the snow was still falling hard and the girls took about thirty minutes for snow angels, snowball fights, and general play in knee-deep snow, much more snow than they had ever seen.  That much snow was something of a surprise; we had expected some, maybe along the lines of what we saw Monday, but this was a lot.  And it kept coming down.

            When we told the driver we were ready to go, he seemed relieved to be headed back down the mountain before conditions worsened.  It was past time for lunch by then (we tended to eat twice a day on this trip:  a late, 9:00 AM breakfast followed by a mid-afternoon or later “lunch”), and our driver suggested the “Little Taj,” an actual Indian restaurant in the isolated mountains.  He knew we were coming from Pakistan, and many of his clients were Indians (an unusual number of tourists come from India, in addition to the expected ones from Russia, Turkey, and Iran—the military road up to Kazbegi was an international one, ultimately leading to the Russian border just a few miles from where we were, but I saw license plates from Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan).  We declined the offer of Indian food, however—we can get curry and biryani anytime, so we headed further down to a local Georgian restaurant in Pasanauri, best known for its homemade khinkhali (dumplings), which were truly delicious.  Also tasty were the sauteed mushrooms with cheese and the pan-fried pork with onions and potatoes, a truly good final meal in Georgia (except for Anastasia, of course, who would eat more shawarma later that evening).  We were back at our hotel—surprise!—early, at 4:30 PM, rather than the anticipated 9:00 PM.  The only thing we really missed was offroading in Kazbegi to Gergeti Trinity Church on Mount Kazbeg (which tops out at 16,512 feet), but it was so snowy and foggy we wouldn’t have seen anything even if the road had been opened.  But everyone had a good time regardless.

            Friday after breakfast at the hotel, we left for the airport.  The lasting image I will have of the Tbilisi airport was what we saw while waiting at the gate:  two truckloads of cattle went by, between the planes and the jet bridges, on their way somewhere.  I joked that it was standard economy class on Air Arabia, one of the discount airlines that flies through there.  Our layover in Doha was considerably shorter, and before we knew it, we were landing one last time at the Lahore Airport, where Khalil was waiting for us at 1:40 AM with a big smile and a warm greeting.  It was a good trip, but it was also good to be home, even if that home is just about to change.  The next travelogue will originate from what will be our new home:  Jeju Island, South Korea.