Akhaltsikhe and the Rabati castle

With my plans for Svaneti definitely svaniti (sorry non-Italian speaker), the choice was between Akhaltsikhe, once an Armenian majority town close to the very interesting city of Vardzia, and the Samegrelo area, noted among other things for its beautiful national park. I opted for the former, also after having discovered that Lucijam had also reached Georgia and was planning to go there. We met in the subway, and proceeded to the Didube station, the same I used to reach Kazbegi last year.

It was like I remembered it. An almost far east feel, with its numerous market stalls selling all kind of goods. I promised myself that this time I would go again in the Station Square underground market, which I only glimpsed on my previous visit.

Once we located the mashrutka for Akhaltsikhe we boarded it and waited for it to fill up. This is how they work, by the way. There is a vague timetable, but they really depart once they're full. A man came up to gather money. He saw we were tourist and started a random litany of prices. First "three", then "six", then "nine". It cleary didn't have a clue on how to tell the correct price, and was even mocked by another passenger, as I overheard the words ar ("not") and inglisurad ("in English"). We gave 10 Lari each, and received 4 back, so we assumed the right price was indeed 6 Lari.

It rained for most of the trip, so I didn't bother taking pics, besides on the bus we managed to meet this chatty French traveller, who made the rainy trip moderately bearable.

Once arrived, we parted with Lucijam, who had plans to reach Batumi for the night, and went to Vardzia immediately (I am not aware if she made it), while me and the chatty French (I don't remember his name, it was similar to Charlie but not exactly Charlie, so I'll call him JeSuisNotCharlie) tried to find a hostel for the night, hoping that in the morning the weather would be better. The address he had pointed to a hotel, not hostel, though. We still asked for the price. 50 Lari for one night. We're talking about roughly 19 Euro for a full room with shower, wi-fi and comfortable beds, so we both said "well, fuck this!" and we moved in. We're not at the Sheraton here, but who cares?

 

 

After resting for a bit and agreeing to meet at 20:00 for dinner, we separately set out to explore the place. Akhaltsikhe (ახალციხე, New Castle) is a town of about 20.000 souls, crossed by the Potskhovi river and, as mentioned before, used to be inhabited mostly by Armenians. Charles Aznavour's father was born here. It has, of course, a tumultuous history. It was captured by the Ottomans in 1576 and by the Russian Empire in 1828.

 

 

Saint Nino

 

The Rabati castle, which overlooks the town, is... weird. It was originally built in the XIII Century and it was recently restored to its original appearance. Now it includes a church, a mosque, a minaret, a synagogue, as well as Jaqelebi Palace, a historic museum, old baths and the surrounding citadel.

 

 

 

As with the Narikala fortress last year and Khor Virap this, I immediately noticed the enormous freedom the visitors have. You can go basically everywhere, climb towers (with internal ladders, of course), go on walkways, explorer corridors and turn corners. No fences, no "forbidden", no "dangerous". Here they must think that dangerous things are pretty obviously so, and if you get hurt, it's your damn bloody fault. I wonder how Americans do here, the notion of "sueing" someone because you fall from somewhere must be source for endless hilarity.

 

 

Yes, of course. Flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all this seems what it probably is, a large playground for rich people, as the multiple restaurant and wineries in the main courtyard seem to indicate. Some of them have outdoor areas suited for cocktail parties, and it's not difficult to imagine how better this must be with the proper weather.

Once back, we went to dinner at a local restaurant, definitely a not touristic one, where I made a show of myself ordering in Georgian ("Khuti khinkali, erti mtsvadi, puri da erti tchika Saperavi, tu sheidzleba! Ara, kartulad tsota tsota vlaparakob, italieli var da is prangelia"). Both of us got two delicious dishes, bread and the two glasses of wine turned into the whole bottle. We paid around 6,5 Euro each. Just saying.

Before going to bed we enjoyed the sight of Rabati by night. The sky seemed clear enough, so we plunged into sleep ready for Vardzia the morning after.

 

 

Sighnaghi and the Ninotsminda monastery

I have been absent from this blog for a while. Mostly because I have been busy doing absolutely nothing, relaxing and drinking wonderful Georgian wine. Anyway, in the previous episode, we were approaching Sighnaghi, a nice mountain town in Kakheti.

Sighnaghi, in the last three years, has been at the center of a big reconstruction project and at times it doesn't even look Georgian. Or better, it looks as Georgia must have been like during its moments of splendour. Houses are brand new, most cars aren't of the Soviet type and there is a general aura of well-being. Everything but the weather is nice. Yeah, the weather.

To be honest, houses aside, it doesn't look that different from any of our borgo. Cobblestone streets, narrow alleys, churches and belfries. It it wasn't for the distinct Georgian architecture style and the mkhedruli signs, we could be on some Appennini or Alps village.

After setting down at the nice and clean guesthouse my taxi driver contacted, I went to have dinner at a local restaurant. Excellent chakapouli, finally with tkemali, and mtsvadi. After that I went back to the guesthouse and prepared to sleep, since the morning after I had plans to visit the Monastery of Saint Nino at Bogde (ბოდბის წმინდა ნინოს მონასტერი), some 2km up Sighnaghi, where lies the woman that converted Georgian to Christianity.

The morning after started with a HUGE breakfast, then a stroll to the monastery. Again, I was astonished at how green and full of flowers Georgia is.

All of the above were seen during my 30 minutes walk from Sighnaghi to the monastery. Georgia in spring is just a marvel to behold.

Finally, the monastery came into sight.

The monastery, which lies in a small cypress grove, overlooking the Alazani valley, shares the same destiny of basically everything in Georgia, having been pillaged, reconstructed, changed, renovated, closed and reopened, during Persian, Russian and Soviet rule. As with the Alaverdi monastery, no pictures were allowed inside, where the remains of Saint Nino are enshrined.

After the church I walked down a long path through corridors and a forest, to the Holy Spring, with water of supposed miracolous nature. There was nothing worth taking photos of, down there, but on the way back I was relieved by the presence of stone elementals watching my steps. Almost literally.

Going back to Sighnaghi, clouds where rising from the valley, resembling mist. The weather was being inclement again.

I went to have a quick lunch, then back to the guesthouse to pick my stuff and wait for my taxi. The landlord asked me if I could take some pics of the room and sent them to his email address, to update the booking.com website. I did, and his wife gave me a large churchkhela. Everybody won in the trade.

Back in Tbilisi, it seemed like that my host's problems weren't over. So I decided to move to GT Hostel again, like last year. Gaga welcomed me ad Zozo, the Japanese guy, was still there. It welt like coming back home, as they offered me house-made wine. The plan, for the morning after, was theoretically to go to Svaneti, but my spider sense was tingling... My and Lekha were supposed to travel together, but she disappeared, so I just decided to skip Svaneti (too far, almost one day would be lost in travel) and relax in Tbilisi for a day. Maybe I could go to see Vardzia, the cave city, instead...

A trip to Kakheti

Kakheti, once an independent feudal kingdom, is now a very important region of Georgia. It is also a very important wine area, and it hosts several important historic sites, like the Davit Gareji complex and the Alaverdi monastery. Since Lekha couldn't also come this time (lessons) and the sudden idea of running around like a headless chicken didn't appeal to me that much, I chose to hire a taxi driver, one that spoke at least a passable English. Enters Guja, a 55 years old man who drove me around for two days, taught me a few extra Georgian words (like შესანიშნავა ხედი, "beautiful sight") and tried to make me succeed in pronouncing that damn ყ, which is the sound a k does when it dies of injuries)

This one was the first step of my trip. It rises in a verdant valley, surrounded by mountains. The weather was not the best, but not too bad either.

The monastery has, of course, its own winery, because you know... vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but nobody ever mentioned soberness. Jesus even turned water into wine, that will probably mean something, right?

Unfortunately, the inside of the monastery was open but it was forbidden to take photographs, and not being that kind of Italian, I complied. It was really majestic, though. Sorry you weren't there. Haha.

As we left, we got stuck into a... traffic jam.

After the visit to the monastery, Guja decided to make a detour from the road to Sighnaghi to show me an old winery, part of the Georgian Wine Road. Yeah, that was a damn fine idea. It was mostly a museum, full of old wine memorabilia, like tools, jars and old bottles.

But the best part was the antique part upstairs. A real treasury of Soviet and post Soviet memorabilia. Typewriters, radio, just about everything...

Everything was awesome, but now it was getting dark, so we headed off to Sighnaghi, a very peculiar town as it's been almost completely rebuilt three years ago. Off we go!