Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan 2018
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan 2018
Caucasus 2018
I have heard it said that everything takes longer than you would ever expect in the Caucasus. After six days here, I believe it to be true. As a case in point, today’s drive of 180 kilometres, all of it on good roads, took us almost 11 hours – departing at 9:25am and arriving at our hotel at 8:15pm. It made for a long day, but not necessarily a tiring one.
An overnight thunderstorm in Kvareli cleared the thick haze that greeted our arrival last night, and the air this morning was crystal clear, giving me a lovely view from my bedroom window across the dam and lake that comprises Lake Illia (also known as Lake Kvareli).
A drive of about an hour brought us to the village of Tsinandali and the Chavchavadze family estate. Prince Alexander Chavchavadze was the son of Georgia’s first ambassador to Russia and the godson of Catherine the Great, and had a lively life as an anti-tsarist public figure and poet during the 19th century. The family was obviously well-to-do, and today the grand family house is a museum set in 200,000 square metres of gardens laid out in an English style. An interesting feature of the garden is a small labrynth in the centre of which is a wishing tree that is adorned with hundreds of coloured ribbons, all of which seem quite recent as none seemed to have faded in the open weather.
No photos were permitted inside the house, but it was everything you might expect of a wealthy 19th century person’s family home that was decorated in an explicitly European style. The estate includes a winery, and the group spent about an hour there while I wandered around the gardens.
Our driving continued through what I now understand to be typical Georgian scenery of rolling hills backed by high mountains, countryside that is markedly greener than the more arid lands of Azerbaijan that we had passed through a few days earlier.
An hour’s drive brought us to Sighnaghi, one of the crossroads of the Great Silk Road surrounded by defensive walls with 23 towers. The town was in immaculate condition, the result of an extensive renovation program that sees Sighnaghi as an historical and winery centre with extensive tourism potential. Nonetheless, the renovations had been carried out sensitively, and there was no sense of artificiality.
Much of the appeal of Sighnaghi lay in wandering the town’s steep cobble-stoned and paved streets, with its lovely buildings and colourful streetside stalls. Special stops were made at the small St George’s Church and the city wall, a section of which can be walked to give panoramic views across the countryside below.
At 2:00pm, we decided that it was time to break for lunch. A group of us went to a small restaurant that Anna recommended from previous visits to enjoy some barbecue pork, which is a local speciality. We ordered our meals at 2:15pm, but it was just after 4:00pm before the food arrived. I guess that’s why long lunch breaks are allowed when travelling in the Caucasus. We finished our lunches quickly, and at 4:30pm resumed our walk around the town, focussing on the war memorial at the town centre and another section of the city walls that gave great views across the surrounding valley and farmlands.
Finally, we took a short five-minute drive to Bodbe Convent, dedicated to St Nino and set on the edge of the hill. St Nino was a girl who, at the age of just 17, was the first person to bring Christianity to Georgia from her home in Cappadocia (Turkey) in the early 4th century. She had a vision at the age of 14 to convert the people of the Caucasus to Christianity, and moved to Georgia in the 320s, quickly impressing local people with her good deeds and miracles. It was when she healed the queen from a serious illness, and subsequently when the king (who was hostile to Christianity) had his sight restored after a hunting accident when he prayed to the Christian God for healing, that the king decreed in 327 that Christianity would henceforth be the official religion.
Mass baptisms were conducted, and Georgia has been a Christian (Orthodox) country ever since despite many periods of intense pressure to convert to Islam or atheism (such as during the Soviet era). St Nino is buried at Bodbe Convent, which is now run by a group of about sixty nuns, many of whom are young university graduates, who spend much of their time growing vegetables. And yes, they drive cars and have access to the internet, including Facebook.
We left Bodbe Convent at about 5:30pm and began the two-hour drive to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital city. We arrived in Tbilisi after dusk, and even in the evening glow it was obvious that Tbilisi is a beautiful, elegant city with some very interesting architecture (none of which could be photographed through the heavy tinting of the bus windows in the dull glow of the evening).
We arrived at what we thought was our hotel at 7:30pm, unloaded our luggage and went inside to register, but it turned out that our guide had been given the wrong name of the hotel where we were supposed to be staying. So we took out our luggage, loaded up the bus again, and drove to the correct hotel; not an easy task at it involved driving through some narrow streets with badly parked cars.
It was good to arrive at our hotel, the Shota Boutique Hotel. Despite its unassuming exterior, the rooms are spacious and well-equipped – seemingly having everything necessary for a well-deserved, good rest before exploring the city of Tbilisi tomorrow.
Day 6
Kvareli to Tbilisi
Saturday
8 September 2018
