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Published: September 12th 2022
Today started by climbing very steep roads that turned into stairs and ended in a dead end. Glyn was pleased and if you read his blog too, I’m sure this will get mentioned no end. I was looking for a direct route up to Narikala Fortress, but instead found a variety of routes, mostly in the wrong direction, so we went up and down up and down the ridge like a game of Snakes and Ladders. We ended up near the Mother of Georgia statue that is situated a lot higher than the fortress, meaning we’d climbed a lot higher than necessary. It was also quite hot, but a small breeze at the top made it worth the trek, oh Glyn is going to bang on in his blog about this endlessly.
Narikala Fortress is free to enter thankfully as there’s not much to see, unless you are a bit foolish and take risks. So I saw a fair bit more than Glyn. Being as it’s from the 4th century, there’s not much left but has great panoramic views if you’re prepared to go climbing over loose rock and paths that only goats would not fear. If it were situated
Parliament
Tbilisi, Georgiain the UK, the whole thing would be closed to the public for being far too dangerous and very crumbly.
Glyn has arthritic knees and thought better of the climb. Having seen two oldish men climb up, I thought I’d give it a go. I had visions of the gutter press taking the piss out of the foolish tourist falling to her death as I carefully picked my way up and clung to the rock. I arrived at a plateau all pleased with myself thinking I’d made it, but the topmost area was still a way up and the steep incline of rubble that may once have been stairs, now was treacherous. Half way up was a metal bar and a chain link fence that had been bent out of shape. I couldn’t believe this was the way and backed off. However, watching the men return, I discovered it was the way.
Realising that I was now on my own, I actually had the good sense to leave it. However, I had the bad sense to climb up another dodgy area and got a good view. Totally worth it! Erm. On the way back, I took it very
slowly, meeting more fools on their way up and one guy helped me down a particularly bad area.
Glyn was at the bottom, having a lovely time watching a kitten play. I missed the kitten but found a lovely tabby in a tree. Nikolos Church, also within the fortress walls is from the 12th century and still in good shape. It was small with high ceilings and smothered in brightly coloured icons and paintings, like posters in a teenagers bedroom walls; it took about a minute to see it.
Right at the front of the fortress was the direct route that I’d failed to find earlier. It was incredibly steep, but we’d have saved at least an hour had we used it on the way there. Tbilisi is not an accessible city if you have a disability. There are so many steps and you’d need bionic arms to push a wheelchair up those cobbled streets.
We stopped for an early lunch at a Georgian/Asian place as I’d not had breakfast and I was quite hungry. The waiter was grumpy, but the food good. In fact, a lot of the service staff, workers in kiosks and the like
Cat
Tbilisi, Georgia are quite miserable. If you’ve ever been to the USA and seen how OTT service staff are there, well this is the direct opposite. These folk clearly don’t need tips and certainly don’t want to engage in needless conversation. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not rude or unhelpful, just have better things to do than pretend that they’re your friend. I’m happy with that, it can be exhausting engaging in small talk, especially when on long journeys with excitable tour guides.
It would cost a fortune to use mobile data, but Glyn was in a state of withdrawal, being only able to play Pokémon at the accommodation where we have free WiFi. He’d previously researched where to get a SIM card and so we walked into a more modern part of town to find Magti which is a proper phone shop.
We passed through Freedom Square where the Lenin statue had been replaced with a bright and shiny gold statue of St George. This is yet another square that is not square, but a huge roundabout with no road markings and a bit of a free for all. I would not like to negotiate the traffic in anything
but a tank. The cobbles were left behind and we knew it was posh because there was a Marriott hotel.
After a long wait in the shop, we eventually got unlimited data sims for 30 days that cost us around £13-14 each. Glyn soon had Pokémon powered up, which he also uses as a map and guide as the pokéstops are often notable places. So we knew that we were walking past the National art gallery and Parliament. Although the latter was more obvious as there was a lone protester outside and some anti war posters.
Back in the old town, we hopped on the Hop on Hop off bus. The price of which included two mini bottles of wine. Glyn doesn’t drink, so I had both. Bonus. We spent about an hour on the open topped bus with headphones listening to commentary on the city which I’ve mostly forgotten. TBH, I started to doze off towards the end.
The fare also included a boat trip from Europe Square (another big roundabout) on the Mtkvari River. As we boarded, a very pissed up woman was disembarking and told us loudly that the trip was shit without wine.
Her companions were clutching a lot of bottles, which maybe was excessive for a 30 minute trip. She did well to get that hammered in such a short time, I guess all she saw was the bottom of her glass. Now it wasn’t amazing, we went up the river a bit, turned around, stopped and then went the other way and did the same. The distance was so short, I saw nothing new. But it’s ticked off the to do list.
Afterwards we had a quick walk up to the nearby Metekhi St. Virgin Church which was super religious; no photos allowed and a woman wailing over the microphone words from a very large book. Again, it took about a minute to see.
We strolled over the Peace Bridge, a modern glass bridge with a roof that doesn’t look too dissimilar to Hanley Bus Station. It has 1000s of LED lights that we’re told look awesome at night. Glyn led us to a street stall to buy himself two local potato pies for 2 laris each and a Mingrelian khachapuri for me which was 4.5 laris and is basically melted cheese on bread. I saved a bit of
it for breakfast as it’s quite filling.
Noteworthy things to note: • The local currency is is the Georgian Lari, aka GEL. It’s around 3.2 GEL to the British pound.
• Population is 3.714 million with a lot living in Tbilisi.
• The country is 26,900 sq mi.
• The language is Georgian, though most speak Russian and many of the signs are secondary Russian, then English. The Georgian language is one of the oldest in the world. It has its own alphabet and differs from any other language.
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