Date arrived: 4th October 2023

Date Departed: 1st November 2023

Distance Travelled: 2019 KM

Average Cost: £48.41 PPPD

4th October 2023

Getting through the border was straightforward, and we took advantage of a cash machine on the Georgian side to get a few Georgian Lari (GEL) out. This allowed us to jump on yet another Dolmus (or Marshrutka, as they're celled in Georgia) into the centre of Batumi.

As we entered the city we could see a significant amount of high rise buildings and towers, and a lot of construction as well, which made it clear why they call Batumi the Dubai of Georgia.

Our hotel was straightforward to find, and we had a lovely room, although it was explained that the city was suffering from a gas outage due to the massively heavy rain - so no hot water for us! We unpacked minimally as we're heading iup to Svaneti tomorrow, and then headed out to a restaurant that Julie had found for our first taste of Georgian cuisine.

This was pretty impressive, with me having a veal stew, and Julie plumping for pork and potatoes. Both were delicious, and we also partook of a glass of Georgian red, also excellent.

5th October 2023

The day started with a delicious Georgian breakfast, including a chickeny tomatoey wrap, potate cake typethings, and various fruit options. We than walked up to the loacal Marshrutka stop - about 2 KM - to find the bus to Zugdidi. Our aim today was Svaneti - the mountainous region in the North that is faous for trekking, but the direct bus from Batumi stops running at the end fo Setember, so we needed to change in Zugdidi.

It was a fairly tortuous day in fairness, as we waited 90 minutes for the Batumi Marshutka to fill up, and then found that we only just made the pretty full bus up to Svaneti - but make it we did! This last part of the journey was pretty windy, as we asended from 300 to 1400M above sea level. We got chatting to a Dutch girl, who is in the process of cycling from the Netherlands to  Vietnam with her boyfriend! This was an impressive sounding trip! 

5th October 2023

Mestia felt very differnet to Batumi, and to everywhere else we've visited on this trip. With the village perched 1400M above sea level, and 500Km further north that Cappadocia (the same distance Edinburgh is from London) there was a marked difference in Climate. As we arrived after dark the temperature was down to single figures, and down jackets came straight out of packs!

With no firm plans, we had arranged just one night's accommodation here initially, knowing the season to be largely over. That said, our Dolmus was full, and there apeared to be no shortage of visitors. Conversations on the bus, though, had re-inforced our opinion that the bad weather due in 4 days time meant that our initial idea of undertaking a 4-day hike to Ushgali, higher in the mountains, was likely foolish. As we reached our guest house, speaking with the landlady helped us to confirm that decision, and we decided to stay here for another few nights. With two additional nights confirmed, we set out to get some dinner, and then settled into our cosy 'bungalow' at the guesthouse Data.

6th October 2023

Th day dawned cold and cloudy, an we moved inside the main guest house for an excellent Georgian breakfast prepared by our host. As the weather forcast for today was good, we decided to set out on a walk to the Chalaadi Glacier, some 10KM or so away. We learned that it's possible to get a 4x4 to take you up to te car park at the bottom of the Glacial valley, giveing you an approx 6KM round trip up the the face of the glacier itself, however as the day was turning out nicely we decided to walk the ful way, both to get some bearings of our area and to stretch our legs!

We'd spotted a sandwich shop in the main square selling hot drinks and snacks, so we bought a couple of ham sandwiches (at decidedly UK prices!) and set out through the village. At first the walk wasscenic as we took a steep path out of the village to loop round and avoid just walking along the main road. Eventually, however, we found ourselves walking past the airport and up a fairly dull trail towards the mountains. I say dull, but all we had to do was raise our heads to look at gorgeous scenery and mountains all around!

We'd been walking for about 9 KM when a driver in one of the ever-present Mitsubishi Delica 4WD vans stopped us, and asked if we would like picking up from the base of the Glacier in about 4 hours. This seemed lke a good plan, as it gave us time to explore the glacier hike and trail, but saved us from the slightly more tedious part of the trek back to town.

Reaching the base of the valley, we could see that this was a popular destination as the 'car park' had about a dozen vehicles, and there appeared to be a couple of cafes running - although only one of them turned out to be open. We crossed the slightly precarious looking bridge over the river, and set off up the trail.

This bit was entirely fascinating, as we got a real-life geology lesson walking up the valley of an actively receding  glacier. At the base of the valley the shaley soil had given birth to a young forest,  which we guessed to be no more then 30-50 years old. As we climbed higher along the fast-flowing river of glacial melt water, soil gave way to gravel, eventually giving way to rock fields,  and the rocks just kept getting larger and larger as we neared the glacier.

Above all of this we could clearly see the bright white of the glacier high above us - with a wall of some kind of dirty brown seeking to block the valley a little further up.  As we got closer, we ralised that this wall was in fact the leading edge of the Glacier, a sheet of rocky ice, but covered in the detritus that the glacier was laving behind as it melted. The rocks under foot changed as we walked, not only growing larger, but also revealing a huge variety of colours, hinting at the history of thesee boulders, which were previusly part of the very mountains themselves until this natural monster had ground them down over millions of years, to eventually dump them here in this valley. Between this and Cappadocia, we'd seen some incredible examples of Geology in action on this trip!

The third picture above is as close as we could get to the face of the glacier, as the ongoing melting was causing large chunks of ice and rock to come loose and tumble to the ground, many of them bouncing 20 or 30 feet from the glacier as they fell.

As we paused at the head of the glacier to eat our expensive but delicious sandwiches, it was incredble to see the constant river of meltwater pouring out from the glacier, and the chunks of the glacier itself falling off in the October sun. Seeeing this, and the scale of the valley vacated by this one glacier in recent years, makes the concept of global warming and changes to our planet seem incredibly real and personal.

As we'd walked up the valley we'd spotted some painted marks on a few of the larger boulders, with names of geological sounding groups and dates, and we realised that these dates must have marked the furthest extent of the glacier in recent years. It was frightening that some of these marks had post-millenium dates, and were literally hundreds of meters down valley from the current face of the glacier,

We later talked to our host, Theya,  about this, and she told us that her grandfather remembered the glacier reaching to the very end of the valley in his youth - suggesting it has receded more than  2.5KM probably within the last 70 years.

Minds suitably blown, we enjoyed a cup of coffee at the open cafe, before taking our lift back into town. We ate that evening  at another local restaurant recommended by one of the other guests at our accommodation, and settled back into our cosy bungalow for the night. Exploring the days walk, we also realised that we had been barely 1500M away from the Russian border at points on our walk today. Eek!

7th October 2023

A longer walk this morning, after our lovely breakfast once again, this time with a local variant of dropped scones. As the weather wasn't slated to be quite as good today, we set off with down jackets on and waterproofs packed. Both came out at different stage of the day. We armed ourselves with fresh bread (60 pence) and processed cheese (a bit more) from a local bakery and market respectively, and put our best feet forwards.

Todays walk was up the slopes behid the village of Mestia, taking in the "Mestia Cross" some 750M above the village, and heading further north if our legs and the weather allowed it. The walk was pretty steep, and unfortunately the clouds didn't really rise, so the views of the mountains around were a bit more limited. That said, we did find a cafe up in the hills at some 2400M which served an awesome cp of strong coffee, and some much appreciated biscuits!

We called the walk at that point, and managed to find a very steep shortcut back down the mountain, cutting off about 3KM of walking, but giving us a bit of a hairy descent at times. We also arragnged an extra night with our host (as the weather forecast was improving slightly) and booked a day-trip to the high-mountian villae of Ushguli for the following day. Dinner at a nother local eaetery introduced us to Schkmuli, which consists of roast chicken pieces, served on the bone and in a creamy-garlicy 'broth', which was utterly delicious.

8th October 2023

Today we took a van trip to Ushguli, the potential destination of the abandoned 4 day hike, and a very pretty village higher up in the mountains. We stopped at the "Tower of love" on the way, which is one of the typical Svanetian tower houses that somebody has somehow persuaded van drivers to call at, and charges 2 GEL per person (65p) for tourists to have a clamber around.

Ushguli was petty cool; it was fairly small, but is really a collection of villages strung out across a mile or so of hillside. There is a famous little church there - which was cute - and a great viewpoint for just sitting and looking at the mountains. Short of eating some lunch and wandering around a bit, this was all that we really did, and it was lovely! We did have an issue on the way back down as the van wouldn't start, but it was ultimately sorted with a pair of jump leads.

9th October 2023

An uneventful departure from Mestia (apart from the 07:30 pickup - yuck) and a day spent in vans in driving rain. Lots of sleep and reading as we descended from the mountains of Svaneti and once more entered the lanes of Georgia. We stopped briefly at Zugdidi as we had on the ascent, and then continued east across country to Kutiasi, Georgia's second city.

9th October 2023

Kutiasi is a York-sized city in central Georgia, and to my mind has a York-like vibe as well. One of the main sights is the ancient Cathedral (bombed and restored in not-quite original trim) and the restaurant scene is surprisingly good.  We chose to spend 5 nights here as part of our four-week long stay in Georgia, partly to give us a break from a fairly hectic three weeks of fast travel, but also because it looked quite promising for things to do!

We arrived early-afternoon on a properly rainy Monday, and discovered that the bus stop we landed at was, inconveniently, not the one 5 minutes walk from our accommodation. Convniently, it had a McDonalds on the edge of it, so we shimmied in there with bags and umbrellas, ordered a couple of coffees, and learned about Bolt. If I say Bolt, think Uber, and that's all you need to know. 

Quarter of an hour later we arrived at our accommodation, a small hotel on the edge of the Old Town, no wetter and barely £3 poorer for the 3KM ride with the app-based taxi service.  We spent a couple of hours walking around the Old Town and getting some bearings (and lunch) but it was difficult to get excited as it was really quite raining. Back at the hotel we researched dinner options, and decided to try Newport Cafe, a contemporary restaurant that is part of a trendy downtown hotel. This proved to be an excellent choice, and we even pushed the boat out to the tune of desserts (I know!) resulting an an all round delicious meal.

10th October 2023

Today we had pre-booked a tour to take us to a local winery - Baia's winery - to participate in a Georgian feast, or Supra. We started the day with a decent beakfast (because wine) at Fleur's cafe, and unsuccessfully sought out a small museum to visit - however we did find another excellent coffee shop and had a snack to tide us over the the 1PM tour (because wine.)

The tour was interesting. We saw a bit about how Georgians traditionally make wine in clay pots (quevri) which is a tradition that is unique to Georgia. We were then fed - rather well - with a selection of local food, involving lots of Chicken, vegetables, bread and wallnut paste. We were also served three types of wine (and toasted with each) as well as a local spirit - ChaCha - which is made by distilling the remains from the wine fermentation process. It was all rather good. 

We basically got back to our accommodation and had a bit of an early night!

11th October 2023

This was a much gentler day, exploring some fo Kutaisi's local sights, including the botanic gardens and Bagrati cathedral. It being a Sunday, there appeared to be some kind of service in play at the cathedral, as there were lots of men with big beards milling around.

In the afternoon we went to a local gym, which was very well equipped and good value, and I re-learned that 6 weeks off running means you can't go at the same speed for the same distance as you did before!

We ate dinner at the very well reviewed Sisters restaurant, which was excellent.

12th October 2023

This was an exciting day's adventure, visiting the nearby town of Tskaltubo! Tskaltubo (to pronounce it, just ignore the first T) was a famous spa town in the days of the USSR, with as many as 18 operating sanitoria where hard-working Soviets could be sent for a prescribed healing break. Even Josef Stalin himself went there at one stage, under doctor's orders!

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, all of this ended, and the various magnificent buildings were simply abandoned. Various attempts have been made to rejuvinate the site, and a number of the hotels and sanitoria have been sold to developers. A couple are even working as spas now, but the vast majority are in ruins, and open to anybody who wants to wander around at their leisure, accompanying the local stray dogs and cows. Yes, you read that right - we actuallys stumbled across a small herd of cows wandering through the magnificent entry hall of an abandoned sanitorium.

Suffice it to say that UK health and safety people would have a giddy fit - but enjoy some of the piccies!

We had a fabulous day at Tskaltubo, and some excellent lunch at a local cafe. The Martrushka there and back were relatively uncomplicated, and all-in all it was an excellent day trip out.

13th October 2023

For our last full day in Kutaisi, we decided to visit the Gelati monastery, an ancient school and place of study a few kilometres outside of the town. We explored the Martrushka options and discovered that there wasn't much available, so we ordered a taxi through Bolt, who took us there for the princely sum of 15 GEL, or just under a fiver in English money. The monastery was impressive, and our plan was to them walk to the nearby Motsameta Monastery, a short and easy walk away, or so we had read.

I honestly don't know what we did wrong! Apart from taking an hour and being fairly challenging in places, the route led us down a fairly steep descent through woodland to a river valley, whereupon we found the following bridge:

We christened it the Bridge of Death - and yes, we both crossed it. I was proud of Julie; heck I was proud of me! 

In our minds we likened it to the famous scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. When we got back, I looked up pictures of that scene, and I think his bridge was significantly more robust than this one! I'll leave that for you to decide.

Aaaanyway - Bridge of Death successfully negotiated, trousers changed, we climbed the remaining cliffs up to the Motsameta monastery. I'm not sure I remember much about it, other than it was at the top of a river gorge with a deadly bridge at the bottom of it!

We followed the railway tracks (probably disused? Who knows, maybe I had a fight on top of a train, I can't remember!) back to Kutaisi, where we both had a stiff drink and a lie down!

We went back to the Newport Cafe for dinner that evening, where, intriguingly, a delegation from UEFA had reserved the table next to us. No interesting behaviour to observe, but dinner was excellent once again; we both had really nice trout, with the same lovely service we'd received here previously.

14th October 2023

Today we said goodbye to Kutaisi, which we had enjoyed, and headed to the metropolitan delights of Tbilisi. With a week's accommodation booked, we were looking forward to exploring this most-talked about of cities. We had the added advantage of tickets to a qualifying match for the Euro '24 Football tournament, with the Georgian national team at home against Cyprus on Sunday 15th.

We were travelling from Kutaisi to Tbilisi by train, our first train journey since leaving the UK, and were very much looking forward to a smoother journey after just under 4,000KM of bus travel in the last 6 weeks. This held true, and the train journey was cheap and painless, although slow.

We took a Bolt taxi from the train station to our accommodation (less than a fiver for a 3.5KM ride through slow city traffic) and navigated the complexities of the Old Town's network of dead ends, cul-de-sacs, and staircases moderately successfully to find our accommodation. The small apartment was perfectly formed, although was about the highest property in Tbilisi, perhaps excluding the ex-president's mansion and the TV transmitter. There was an excellent view, however!

We took a Bolt taxi from the train station to our accommodation (less than a fiver for a 3.5KM ride through slow city traffic) and navigated the complexities of the Old Town's network of dead ends, cul-de-sacs, and staircases moderately successfully to find our accommodation. The small apartment was perfectly formed, although was about the highest property in Tbilisi, perhaps excluding the ex-president's mansion and the TV transmitter. There was an excellent view, however!

We arrived fairly late, so popped to the nearest restaurant for some dinner, and settled in to catch a good night's sleep.

15th October 2023

Time to explore Tbilisi! With nothing in to eat yet, we set out for some breakfast and to get our bearings in the city.  Julie had found an excellent cafe called Breakfast IS tucked in near the new government buildings about 20 minutes walk from the apartment, so finding this was a good test of navigation. Food was superb, and our next challenge was to get in some shopping for the rest of our week in Tbilisi. We had located a Carrefour supermarket, and managed to get an assortment of goodies including oats, plums, bread and cheese, and some childrens' cereal for me. We also found additional coffee and tea bags, as well as some toiletries we were running short on.

Back at our apartment we planned the rest of the day. We figured it was about a 6KM walk to the football stadium, so decided that might do us some good and help us with our bearings in the wider city. On this basis we scoffed some of the bead and cheese we'd just bought, and set off through town to find Vake Park and the Mikheil Meshki Stadium.

It was a good walk, and took us about an hour and a half, but also helped us with seeing where quite a lot of places were in the city centre, particularly a lot of Tbilisi's larger museums. We had time once we reached the magnificent Vake Park to enjoy the open space and get a cup of coffee, before we headed for the stadium to watch the match.

Entry was just like any stadium in the UK. Queues, turnstiles, bag searches, and discarding any liquids - bye bye bottle of water! Once inside what looked to be a recently refurbished stadium, we found plenty of loos and food and drink points, and we shared a hot dog and a pint through the uneventful first half. Georgia seemed to be the better side, but not tellingly so.

At the beginning of the second half I was still queueing for a beer when the roar of the crowd told me I'd missed something. When I eventually got inside a couple of minutes later, it turned out to be a 3rd minute goal, and a proposal from the stands! The next 45 minutes were pretty exciting, with Georgia scoring two further goals in open play, and finishing off with a 93rd minute penalty for a 4-0 victory. 

After the match, we broke up the long walk back with dinner at the N1 Wine Factory - a large establishment split into a number of art and dining destinations, with some funky bars. We had Tacos at a mexican style eatery, which were very good.

16th October

Big city = walking tour; as many museums close on a Monday, this is always a good day to do a walking tour. They are an excellent way of learning about a place, and tend to take you to a few places you might not explore on your own, whilst telling you something of hte history and culture of a place. We popped out for breakfast, then called into a copy shop to print out our Indian Visas (which had been granted successfully - phew!) then headed to the meeting point for the local freee walking tour.

We are big fans of the 'Free walking tour' model as it allows you to reward a guide appropriately for their knowledge and delivery, and you can make sure that the guide is getting the money directly. This one was very good, although not a small number of gentl jabs towards the Russians in the group. We also found out a few bits about the old town, visited the 'Bridge of Peace' and foud out where the  Abanotumi Bath houses were. Ths was of interest as I was keen to try out the baths, and Julie had been kind enough to offer to treat me for my birthday the following week.

17th October

We planned to visit MOMA Tbilisi today - but we got there to find it is closed on a Tuesday. On that basis we explored the Georgian National Museum, which is an archeological museum, and includes an exhibition dedicated to the Soviet occupation. Georgia in general seems pretty bitter about it's time under soviet rule; the country declared its independance from the Ottoman empire in 1918, and Lenin et al took over in 1921. This exhibition plays heavily on the atrocities committed early in the Soviet period, partcularly in the mid-20s and 1935. It doesn't really discuss much about the time betwen the wars, when I understand Georgia went through quite a boom under the communists, but I can understand why this type of museum and exhibit might focus on what were some pretty horrrific events in the first half of the 20th century.

As well as the Museum of Soviet Occupation, the National Museum also has a truly excellent exhibition abot the evolution of Homo Sapiens - wth various skulls and life-size representation of the earlier hominids. It also has a Treasury in the basement with an incredible collection of historiv and pre-historic artifacts made from precious metals, mainly gold and silver.

For lunch we headed north in the city to explore a project called Fabrika. Fabrica is an old Soviet sewing machine factory that has been converted to an art-space, with co-working facilities plus various cool cafe's and eateries. We enjoyed the street art, explored the area a bit, and also had lunch in one of the cafes. Having walked a fair bit, we explored the Metro system, and managed to get back to our apartment much more quickly riding this.

18th October

Bath day! As an early birthday treat, Julie booked me a private bath (sounds more exotic than it is) and traditional exfoliating Kisi scrub in the beautiful Chreli Abano baths. The Abanotubani district of Tbilisi is the heart of the ancient city, and the site of the hot sulphur springs that gave Tbilisi it's name (it means Warm Place). Chreli Abano is one of the oldest of the bath houses that sprung up in this region, and has played host to the likes of Alexanders Dumas and Pushkin, both of whom wrote about Tbilisi and the bath house. 

We had booked a small but comfortable room containing a hot sulphur bath, a smaller cold plunge pool, as well as a dry (swedish style) Sauna and a large shower. There was also a tiled bench, which is where I lay for my Kisi scrub. We very much enjoyed soaking in the warm sulphurous water, and whilst my scrub treatment was rather vigorous, I can't deny that my skin felt amazing for days afterwards! The room also gave me some excellent ideas should I ever be re-designing our bathroom...

Thoroughly bathed and scrubbed, we then set out to explore more of Tbilisi's museums. It was a big day this one, with the excellent MOMA Tbilisi, now open, and the Tbilisi museum of fine art both on our agenda. MOMA had a really impressive selection of exhibits, including a large permanent exhibition by Zurab Tsereteli, whose work is amazing. From bright vibrant oil paintings to truly monumental sculptures, it was incredible to see such a breadth of work displayed in one exhibition. If you get the chance, I strongly recommend a visit.

We hadn't particularly planned to visit theTbilisi museum of fine art, however today was the opening day of a substantial Banksy retrospective, put together by Steve Lazarus, his one time agent. Tempted in by this, we very much enjoyed looking back over Banksys's fascinating and disruptive career. We also really enjoyed the rest of the museum, which had an impressively varied selection of works, mainly paintings and sculptures, but much more interesting than we had expected.

In addition to this I absolutely loved the building, both inside and out, including the incredible (if somewhat off putting)glass staircase.

This was a busy day, capped by a lovely dinner at the appropriately name Hide restaurant. We struggled to find it, but got there eventually. This was where I discoverd that, in Tbilisi at least, burgers and other substantial eat-by-hand dishes are served with a pair of nitrile gloves! That's one way to stop you playing with your phone while you eat.

19th October

The weather was less good today, with a bit of rain in the air - so we spent the morning catching up on washing and writing. In the afternoon we headed out to th Tbilisi digital museu, which had an excellent audio-visual exhibition, merging various works from 5 very different artists. We enjoyed it a lot, although it was moderately expensive. We ate quite late at a small pizza shop just around the corner from the apartment, as we'd spent quite a bit of time fixing some problems with Julie's web site!

20th October

Our last full day in Tbilisi, and we were gifted with lovely sunny weather. We set out on a bit of a wander, exploring the Botanic Gardens over the Solokai ridge behind our apartment, then making our way right around town to the Fuicular which ascended to Mtatsminda Park, a funfair and entertainment complex at the top of Mt Mtatsminda. The views over the city were excellent, and we also enjoyed a long and leisurely walk back down from this hgh point to our accommodation.

En route we passed underneath the ridiculous mansion of former Georgian President, and billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Sitting atop the Solokai ridge behind the old town,  it looks like a cross between a futuristic mansion, a swiss clinic, and a heliport. In all cases, you could imagine the words "We've been expecting you, Mr Bond," to be uttered inside those walls.

This turned out to be a pretty exhasting day, so we stayed local for food, and then packed up ready for our departure back to the mountains the next morning.

21st October

With a plan for an early bus to Kazbegi, we grabbed a quick breakfast, said goodbye to Apartment Zoey, and caught the Metro to the Isana bus station, there to catch our Martrushka into the mountains!

21st October

With a close-eye on the weather, we had hoped that we might get up to Stepantsminda, in the Kazbegi region, should w get a suitable break. Fortunately we did, and it looked as if we might get 2 fine days on the 21st and 22nd, before the rain (and likely snow) came back in again. We took advantage, booked 2 nights accommodation in a fairly nice looking B&B, and set out to catch an early Martrushka up the Georgian Military Highway.

This is a fascinating road that runs from Tblisi up to the Russian border and, thanks to the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the only land crossing between Georgia and Russia. Not knowing this at the time, we were fasciated by the amount of traffic - particularly HGVs - on this winding, single lae highway. We passed a couple of multi-kilometre long queues of parked trucks, and thus realised there must be some commercial significance to this route.

It had also clearly snowed over the last few days, as there was deep snowfall on the way up to the 2,400M Jvari pass that the road traverses. At one point on the road an artic had managed to get stuck on one of the hairpin bends, in such a way that the other trucks could not get past. This was resolved while we were weaving our way through the line of queing HGVs, but could easily have caused a major jam!

Anyway, road aside, Stapantsminda is petty small, with a dozen or so restaurants and cafes, and probably 2 to 3 times that number of hotels. As we were well outside the main season, many of these were closed.

We arrived at lunchtime, grabbed a bite at one of the open cafes, and then set out for a short hike up onto the 'lower' side of the valley. This was grat as it allowed us to understand the georgraphy, and get a goodd luck at the impressive Mount Kazbeg, and the famous Gergeti Trinity Church, on the other side of the valley.

The first picture above was taken from our hotel balcony, pretty much as soon as we arrived. It was only over the next couple of days that we realised how rare a picture it was, as the 5,070M tall peak is almost always hidden by clouds due to it's prominence in the region!

We ate at a small restaurant recommended by our host, enjoying a nice drop of beer and wine, before sleeping well. As ever, travel days tend to wear me out, particularly when we have 3 1/2 hours cramped in a small minibus on winding mountain roads!

22nd October

Today's plan was ambitious. We had found a hike up to the Gergeti Glacier, some 1,600M above the town, and about 12km in distance. Whilst challenging, this should have been achievable, but an early start was necessary. The route started out by hiking up to the Gergeti Trinity Church, which you can just about see on he first picure above,  atop the left-most peak. This first part was moderately challenging, and brought us to the very pretty mountain top church - one of the most photographed buildings in Georgia, due to it's incredible setting.

Trinity Church sits on a peak some 400M above Stepantsminda, and the walking trail up there is a bit of a scramble around the side and up the mountain. When you get there there is a well-paved road which comes up behind the Church, and finishes about 50M below it. There is no way to get up to the church itself without som degree of steep ascent, which makes it's position even more impressive.

Having reached Trinity Church, and dodged the bus-loads of south-east asian tourists taking selfies and photoshoots, we proceeded up the mountain behind it. Whilst we started out making good pace, it wasn't long before the route got very steep, and the snowfall of the last few days had left quite a lot behind, particularly where there were shadows or ruts. This made the ascent quite tricky, because the trail has some worn dips in it, which were largely full of melting snow, or slippery mud caused by just-melted snow. This meant we had to walk 15-20 feet to the side of the path, which was a much rouger, less-worn route, and pretty hard going.

From Stepantsminda, 1750M above sea level, the planned route ascends first to Trinity Church (at 2150M) then up to Sabertse Pass (2950M) before progessing across the pass and up to the foot of the Gergeti Glacier, some 3350M up. This entire route is a mile of vertical ascent in 12KM of distance.  This detail, by the way is me setting the scene for our decision, on reaching the pass, that enough was enough and we couldn't quite face any more up! 

We had a perfectly good excuse, as the ground was pretty thick with snow once we got over the pass. Being honest, however, the last 2KM up to that ridge, which included 500M of ascent, actually took us two full hours to complete, so it was purely exhaustion speaking. And, of course, wanting to get back down before dark!

The view from Sabertse, however, were stunning.

It's fair to say that the descent was pretty tough as well (we went a slightly different route to try and minmise the snow,) but nowhere near as hard as the climb. We got back to our accommodation just over 8 hours after we set off, having covered barely 16KM of distance - but a fairly respectable 1400M of ascent and descent.

That evening ended up being unexpectedly entertaining, as we decided to visit the town's Indian restaurant. As we arrived we realised it looked pretty quiet, so opened the door to find a group of 5 gents of apparently Indian origian rooted firmly in front of a TV, watching a cricket match! Not just any match either, but the India Pakistan ODI from the Cricket World Cup in India. We checked we were okay to come in, and then settled down to enjoy an excellent meal (with slightly sporadic service - but we didn't really care) and the last 20 overs of the Indian innings, leading to a win with a few balls to spare.

23rd October

After a brief stay in Stepantsminda, and some excellent hiking, our oute took us once more to Tbilisi, and then on to the Kalkheti region of Georgia, in the East. Kalkheti is the historical and contemporary heart of Georgia's fabulous wine industry, and we had picked out a couple of destinations there to learn about, and enjoy, Georgia's unique produce.

23rd October

A 2 hour martrushka ride to Tbilisi led to a rapid changeover, and then a further 2 hour ride to the incredibly pretty hilltop town of Sighnaghi. We checked into our acommodation - an immaculately clean small hotel mere yards from Sighnaghi's town square - and went for an explore.

Sighnaghi itself is pretty small, and we really managed to cover many of the town's sites in a couple of hours that afternoon - but gifted with lovel weather and a very cute town, I can't say it was anything other than pleasant! We walked on the ancient city walls, eyed up a restaurant for dinner, and spotted a winery that we thought would be an excellent destination the following day. Having enjoyed a hot chocolate looking out over the walls, we nipped back to our hotel, had a brief lie down then headed out to eat. We both enjoyed a delicious pasta meal looking out over the Alazani river valley. I gained a cat shortly into the main coursee, who graduated from looking plaintively up at us from the floor, to standing up against the side of the chair, before finally jumping into my lap and simpply settling there for a few minutes!

4th October

With a full day to spend in Sighnaghi, we started with a simple breakfast in a small bakery, before walking the three kilometres or so to the Bodbe monastery, just outside of town. Ironically, Julie replicated my experience from dinner the night before, but this time with a small kitten, who leapt into her lap and sat there purring. This seemed to cause the bakery owner much amusement, but Julie wasn't complaining.

The Bodbe monastery is now a working convent, and the nuns maintain beautifully laid out gardens. You can follow a path down the side of the hill to reach a spring, reputed to produce holy water with healing powers. I'm not so sure about the healing powers, but itt was a lovely walk, and we enoyed the grounds and woodland path, before returning to town. Quite fortuitously, we passed a leather worker's shop on the way, and I spotted a very nice new wallet, which Julie kindly bought me as a gift for my birthday. I am spoiled!

Our plan for today was to partake of a wine tasting at one of two wineries in town. We initially visited the Pheasants Tears winery, but as we were entering, so was a large tour group. We decided this may make it less pleasant, so walked up the hill to Okro's winery instead.

This turned out to be an excellent choice, as Okro's was much less crowded, and has a superb tasting terrace overlooking the valley and mountains - a view we were becoming familiar with! We also managed to arrive just as another couple was about to begin a guided tasting, and when we asked about doing one the guide was happy to work with both tables together. 

This worked to our advantage for several reasons: we were offered a 'basic' 5 wine tasting, with an option to add extra wines to this up to 8. We opted for the 5, but it seems that the other couple had gone for the full 8 - and our guide seemed to have no issue with simply filling up our empty glasses with samples of the others! In the end we had 7 wined from the tasting each, plus a sparkling wine to try, plus two wines that the other couple were buying, and kindly gave us samples of as well. We thought this incredibly generous of them, and then even more so when we looked at the wine list and realised they were the two mst expensive options on the wine list!

Extra samples weren't our only gain however. We were served wines from two labels - Okro's, the main label of the winery, and also Sister's wines. During the talk we learned that John Okurashvili - Okro - was the vintner responsibe for the establishment of the winery, but that he also had a younger sister - Jane - who made wine as well. Jane had simpley become known as 'Okro's Sister', and as such the Sister's label had been born. Our guide was uniquely qualified to explain this to us, being none other than Jane Okarushvili herself - Okra's Sister. This explained why she had not beeen shy in pouring us an extra drop!

We also bought a bottle of Okra's dry red Saperavi to enjoy at a later date!

Overall this tasting, along with an excellent lunch, proved to be a really worthwhile experience.

25th October

My birthday! We started the day getting on to the one daily bus to T'elavi - the main town of the region, where we planned to spend the next two days. Unfortunately, the van was not very well, and we weere told, unceremoniously "No T'elavi van today."

There then followed some shenanigans while we managed to secure a seat on the Tbilisi bus, and arrange to be dropped off halfway in the hope of flagging down another bus going the other way. Amazingly, this worked. We spent about 15 minutes standing by the side of a road hoping that a) Another bus would come; b) we would recognise the squiggles in the window sufficiently to know it was the right bus; and c) it would stop for us! As already mentioned, this all worked somehow, with a little help from a Georgian chap stood at the same point in the road, who helped us with the squiggle recognition (he spoke no English, but between us we managed to offer and accept help!)

25th October

Arriving in T'elavi about 15 minutes behind schedule, we grabbed some quick pastries for breakfast, along with a carefully made Latte. I enjoyed the latte so much I had 2 - pushing the boat out fo the birthday. We'd also arranged to stay at a slightly nicer-than-usual hotel, using a Hotels.com free night to keep the price down. Once we got over how hilly T'elavi is (any guesses about the relative positions of the guest house and bus station?) we checked in to our very nice room and put together a plan of attack for our two days here.

This involved an afternoon visit to T'elavi's main monument - the Batonis-Tsikhe fortress, palace and museum site, which combined the ancient castle walls with an interesting art and ethnographic museum, as well as the restored Batonis palace. This was the seat of the Kings of Kakheti, and made for an interesting couple of hours. The beautiful stained glass windows in the palace were probably the highlight, although the whole thing was resonably impressive and well thought through. 

26th October

Today we went for a day trip to Tsinandali, a small town just outside of T'elavi, and the home of the Tsinandali winery. This is one of the largest commercial wienries in Georgia, and the site is fascinating. As well as a guided tour of the old mansion house - much redesigned and rebuilt over the eras - the ticket allowed you to add a wine tasting of the stock Tsinandali offering for a mere 2 Georgian Lari - or 65p in English terms. 

Following the tour and a walk around the very "English country house" gardens, we made a brief visit to the "Tsiandali Estate" Radisson resort, where we had some lunch and (in my case) another glass of the lovely Tsinandali wine. We then wandered back through the grounds, exploring the hedge maze (too easy) and the tunnel of love as well as some very surreal sculptures dotted around.

From there we walked back up the road to the Shumi winery, another commercial winery that caters more to tour groups. This place was a little odd, and as well as a museum of wine paraphernalia, restaurant, and shop, it had a number of decidedly odd attractions in the grounds, including a laurel hedge in the shape of a griffon, and what looked like a Hobbit-hole, in a large wine barrel. We didn't stay long, leaving to stand on the main road outside where we managed to flag down a marshrutka back to T'elavi!

We found a rather good restaurant for dinner where we treated oursleves to a whole bottle of (can you guess?) Tsinandali wine, ending up taking half of it back to the hotel with us!

27th October

A late morning marshrutka back to Tbilisi had the advantage of starting at least, but went over a fairly uncomfortable route, crossing the high but pretty Gombori pass, over often unfinished roads. We had to cover our mouths and noses at one point, there was so much dust inside the bus! This landed us back in Tbilisi for the next four days however, and we got the (now familiar) metro to the different accommodation we'd booked, slightly closer into the "new" part of the town centre, and 5 minutes walk from a metro station.

We spent 4 more days in Tbilisi, which I'll summarise as follows:

27th October

Arrived and checked in to accommodation, before finding a launderette and doing some washing. Rock and roll. Dinner at an italian restaurant in the Wine Factory food court type place we visited previously.

28th October

Metro and bus out to the Tbilisi Auto Museum. This fascinating small museum is home to about 25 lovingly restored cars fromt the Soviet era - originally one man's private collection, but donated to the museum which has built on them since. Fascinating to see the massive limousines that the soviet political elite once rode in, and to note that luxury cars were modelled on American vehicles, whereas the smaller cars for the masses were modelled on European. We also visited the East Point mall, and tried Wendy's Pizza (meh).

We went to a local gym in the afternoon, which was okay, but a bit too crowded. The exercise was very much appreciated however, despite having done rather a lot of walking.

9th October

All the walking! We started off eying up a simple route around the dge of town to get to the Tbilisi Oudoor Ethnographic Museum, but the lack of contours on Google Maps meant that we didn't notice the two 100M+ ridges we had to clamber over to get there. Still, we had lunch by lovely Turtle Lake at the top of a cable car, then explored the museum - which is, if anything, a bit overrated. The exhibits are arguably impressive a number of traditional dwellings from around the country, taken down and rebuilt on the site. There is little information, however, and many of them are locked up, which feels disappointing. 

Got a bus back to the hotel cos we were knackered after all of this!

30th October

A very boring doing things day. Back to the launderette (slightly more exciting in that I discovered an app to control and pay for the washing machines) while Julie got on with some work, then hair cuts for both of us. Inevitably, mine was cheaper than Julie's! 

We did, however, visit a fabulous restaurant for our last night in Georgia, called Van Goghi, and decorated with large reproductions of the master's work - modified, of course, to fit the location! The food was excellent as well, with beef cheeks and a lovely Georgian red (of course).

31st October

Our last day in Georgia - and with a 00:35 flight the next morning to boot. We were very lucky that Natia, our wonderful host at the Stay Boutique Hotel in Tbilisi, offered to let us keep our room for the entire day, which was a real logistical godsend!

With the full day available, we took a metro and bus out to the ancient Georgian capital of Mtskheta. No, we couldn't pronounce it either. In the end we jus said "Bruschetta" but replaced the B for an M, which seemed somewhere near. Mtskheta has a massive 10th century cathedral, and also the very impressive Jvari monastery perched on a ridge above it. Being the masochists we are we decided we could easily walk up to the monastery, which only took us 3 hours, as it was 10KM there and back - up a steep hill, over a river, and through a tunnel under a busy highway. The view from the top was worth the slightly unpleasant tunnel - just. We had lunch in town, caught a marshrutka and metro back, then headed back to our accommodation for a much needed shower, and to finish off packing our things.

We said goodbye and thank you to Natia, then hopped on a bus to the airport, bidding incredible Georgia a very fond farewell!

Next stop: India and Ahmedabad!