Tbilisi

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Hotel: Hotel Lile (Tbilisi, Georgia) $40
Woke up this morning to an absolutely clear sky; the view out the window of our hotel was stunning with the Tsminda church high above and the snowcapped peak of Mt. Kazbek behind it. We hoped to catch one of the early marshrutkas to Tbilisi around 8 AM; we were lucky to catch one that actually left 20 minutes early. The fare was 8 GEL ($4.50) for the 4 hr ride back to Tbilisi. Originally, we had been planning on going all the way through to Armenia today, but decided to spend an extra afternoon in Tbilisi and catch the early morning shuttle to Alaverdi. We took the metro back to Hotel Lile, which now had two rooms available (out of only three rooms in the hotel!). My wife and I would be returning to Tbilisi in 4 or 5 days and decided to consolidate our bags. We would be staying at the Sheraton for our final night, after walking over they allowed us to store the other bag until we returned. All four of us then wandered around Old Tbilisi for awhile, then caught a taxi out to the Ortachala bus station to check on buses to Yerevan the next morning. On the way out to the station we noticed a nice looking restaurant that was full of people, we decided to stop there for dinner on the way back. We had a good meal of garlic chicken and khinkali, a huge meat dumpling.

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