Sadly we celebrate the invitation to the open council and the presentation of our citizen’s document of Bonaduz over 4000 km away but with every available and meltable cheese.
Swiss!
A first trip into town
We took our first exploration into town on our 2nd day. It was supposed to be dedicated to get to know the town an help us to regain our orientation. Tbilisi is situated along the river Kura stretching out up the surrounding hills like so many arms.
When we arrived in Tbilisi, we entered from the north which we did not expect and as as our senses were occupied by everything other than our sense of direction we lost this probably at this moment. Thist means: While Ulrich is fighting to get back his unerring sense of direction by trying ceaselessly and still failing every so often, I gave up on trying to get my bearings about our geographical situation. It is a very strange feeling if you are not sure about your orientation on the planet anymore. Now I know that there are many people traveling to Tbilisi are suffering from the same problem. For these few months I will probably have to reverse to orientate myself by using landmarks instead of a general feeling of direction.
Well back to our first trip into town: Due to the good experience in Budapest, we decide to take a ride on one of these Hop-on-Hop-off Buses. We leave our car at the office of Georgia Insight and start walking. It is very busy in town despite it being Sunday.
As you can see on the pictures our first trip is rendered interesting by all the information about fascinating and contradictory history. Of course we are only shown the nice areas of Georgia’s capital city but luckily the intercom on the bus is damaged so that we are accompanied by a sort of private tour guide who is willing to answer at least a few of our questions.
Lomisa
Well rested by a good night’s sleep half of our group starts the ascent to Lomisa Monastery in the region of Mskheta, which has been presented to us as a very special place by a friendly young lady who also made it possible for us to get into contact with the local monks due to her proficient translation skills. The monks promptly gave us a bottle of homegrown wine and we were pretty ashamed that in the chaos of our leaving Tbilisi we plainly forgot to take any presents for potential hosts.
Well, off we go. We start ascent into a glorious autumn morning. For the first 300 m of altitude we follow a beautiful footpath through heaps of rustling foliage and reach our first viewing point shortly above the tree line. It consists of a small altar and cross and presents a stunning view to the north as well as a place of praying for pilgrims.
We continue up to the monastery. Three monks live here permanently although they regularly descend into the village to top up their supplies. It seems to be a tradition for the omnipresent pilgrims to take a piece of firewood up the mountain as a gift for the monks.
Despite us being able to enjoy the way up as well as the monastery itself without the encounter of too many others, Lomisa seems to be quite an important subsidiary of the Orthodox Church as we discover when telling our friends about our march and exploring further on the internet. Another thing we did not realize in advance is the fact, that up at the monastery we are situated exactly on the controversial border to South Ossetia.
The place itself is simply peaceful and emanates a great dignity. The little church is really tight and paltry but made up with so many Icons brought up here by hikers and pilgrims. Even if instead of doing just over 400 m in altitude we ended up doing more than 700 it was definitely worth it. The charisma of this place is magical.
Kazbegi – Stepanzminda
Wir haben Besuch aus Deutschland! Für zwei Wochen besucht uns meine Schwiegwerfamilie aus Nordrhein-Westphalen. Am Ende der ersten Woche machen wir uns mit zwei Wohnmobilen auf den Weg nach Stepanzminda in der Region Kazbegi. Unter grossem Chaos bestücken wir unseres sowie das grössere der beiden Wohnmobile von Georgia Insight mit allen Notwendigkeiten und machen uns gegen 15:00 auf den Weg nach Norden. Stepanzminda erreichen wir leider erst im Dunkeln und unseren Stellplatz finden wir mitten im Ort, da wo früher angeblich mal ein Zeltplatz war. Jetzt ist dort ein unbefestiger aber sehr hübscher Wald-Park, der sich ziemlich gut eignet, eine Nacht im WoMo zu verbringen.
Unser heutiges Ziel ist der Besuch der kleinen Kirche, die man auf dem ersten Bild unten sieht. Da es bis dorthin immerhin gut 400 Höhenmeter und etwa 4 km sind, ist die Kirche wohl nicht so ganz klein. Alle, die wir nicht gerade fusskrank oder lustlos sind, machen wir uns also auf den Weg nach oben, während die Schmerzgeplagten mit dem Taxi fahren, um uns dort zu erwarten. Dieser Plan geht leider nicht auf, da der Taxifahrer der Ansicht ist, dass 10 min Kirchbesichtigung reichen und man dann besser wieder runterfährt, damit man die nächsten Gäste abzocken kann. Schade.
Uns bleibt leider auch nur begrenzt Zeit die wirklich schöne Kirchenanlage zu erforschen und die sensationelle Aussicht zu geniessen bis uns ein scheinbar dramatischer Wetterumschwung in Richtung des Kazbek zwingt, ebenfalls den Abstieg anzutreten. Da Lotte ungeeignetes Schuhwerk trägt, wage ich mich barfuss auf den Abstieg und bin wirklich erstaunt und begeistert, was ein Paar Füsse so alles aushält.
Unten angekommen werden die WoMos startklar gemacht und wir treten die Heimreise an. Einmal mehr werden wir diese mit einer weiteren Nacht in der Wildnis verlängern und einmal nachsehen, wo in Georgien schöne Pätze für eine Nacht im Camper zu finden sind. Das ist nämlich einfach das schönste am Reisen mit dem Wohnmobil: Wo es schön ist, kann man hier einfach bleiben. Ist Zivilisation drumherum, kommt man immer wieder in Kontak, weil die Mobile doch eher noch eine Ausnahme darstellen und wenn nicht, umgibt einen herrliche Dunkelheit und Stille.
Is Tbilisi a nice city?
Today my friend Christian posed this question to me on WhatsApp. The answer is too long. I decided to simply add another chapter to our blog and try to explain our experiences bit by bit. Tbilisi is stunningly beautiful and absolutely ugly.
My first impression of Tbilisi was absolutely stressful. After a long day driving we arrived in the early evening in time for rush hour, when dusk just started to fall. Ulrich in front I at the rear in the camper, huge amounts of chaotic and ruthless traffic and the first exit took us through a switchback with 12% inclination… Urgh!
On our way to Agaraki – a newly developing quarter for the rather rich – the satnav takes us through settlements of very obvious poverty. The roads’ condition is such that I would suggest that here those massive SUV’s are just about adequate.
Before moving into this vast town we are allowed to stay on the outskirts for a few days and take our first explorational trips from up here.
I believe we have to look at two layers of telling about Tbilisi and its beauty. Firstly there are the “touristy” impressions which we experience when visiting all those places of interest and then there is the layer of making this city a kind of home to us and trying to live a “normal” life owing to the fact of our long stay here.
We are here for over a month now and to be true it seems to be a disgrace of me for not telling you earlier about our stay here. So let’s get started…
Picking grapes in Kachetia
Today is going to be a special day. Its is the last day of harvest in Georgia and we are invited to take part in this celebration with Gia’s family in Jimiti by helping to pick the last of this years grapes and joining in the feast afterwards.
At 8:30 a.m. we leave Tbilisi and turn of the main road direktly into the winefields afte about 80 km.
Grape picking is just the same as in Fischingen a few years ago. A jumble of people meet with buckets, kitchen knives and garden scissors and with a lot of laughter and sticky hands we cut those gorgeous grapes off the vine. The only difference: it is warm, dry and flat in Georgia while it used to be muddy, cool and steep in Fischingen…
Having worked for half an hour we are invited to a first picnic. We are presented with this wonderful traditionally baked bread, eggs, cheese, sausages, tomatoes, burgers, beans and fried potatoes. Additionally Chacha (a grape schnaps) and Water. It is tradition here that you seem to present a little blessing or thanks before you drink any alcohol.
Being so well cared for the next two hours of work fly by easily and we return to Gia’s parent’s farm. The electrical grape shredder has a little difficulties starting, so most of the party leave for a walk to the nearby St. George’s church and a small chapel on the surrounding hills to enjoy the look over the Kachetian plain.
In the early days the church was the center of the village until the inhabitants were made to move down the hill more or less willingly. Now the meadow of old Jimiti is dotted with small huts the history of which is as follows: The wine cellar was the heart of each family’s house as well as their wine being a kind of calling card. Traditionally here the wine is stored in socalled Qvevris (earthen amphorae), which for keeping moisture and temperature were buried in the earth. One of each family’s Qvevri was holy and this holy one was left where the family’s house was once standing. Marked and closed they were just dots on the landscape until more and more people gave them small new homes and started caring for them again on a more regular basis. Supposedly some of them are even filled again and if you find wine, you can take some.
Back on the farm about two hours later a veritable feast aweits us. Feasting is another good place to disgrace oneself. In Georgia it works like this: once you reach the usually brimming table you sit down and eat. No waiting or talking – just eat. You can also dring water. Then the wine is served and here many mistakes are possible. Here are some instructions:
1. A glass of wine is never completely filled nor completely empty – empty is reached by halving the contents.
2. If you drink wine this is accompanied by a blessing or toast reaching from thanking for a rich harvest, then friends, then family, then parent (living and dead) and can easily take a few minutes to be uttered.
3. When you heard “gaumarjos” you lift your glass and empty it in one go and it is refilled immediately. If you want to keep your senses, just leave the glass on the table. That’s alright but only sipping small amounts is not.
Luckily the glasses only contain about 0.1 l.
This traditionally pressed wine tastes completely different to our normal clear and light white wines. Ulrich explains the taste very adequately by saying: Like Vinsanto but without the sweetness. I wonder whether it tastes as nice once we are at home. But we will surely bring a few bottles.
By 6:00 p.m. the premises are emptying. Having been warned to drive with doubled vigilance because of many such feasts in the region we depart for Tbilisi. IT turns out the warning was well due as there are quite some situations with cars not exactly staying in their lanes bu Ulrich takes us easily through the danger zone and we arrive quite safely. Driving in Georgia is hell but driving here with drunks is much much worse.