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Published: February 19th 2015
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There are two main "areas" in the world that I need to discover properly. I name West Africa, where I've been only to Ivory Coast few month ago....and the Stans!
Well, Georgia is not a "Stan" but it is as close as you could get to. Rest assured that this may be a first visit to the region, but it is for sure not the last one. I have so much more to discover in Central Asia.
The first question would be to know if Georgia is in Europe or in Asia. Ask the people here, or simply go to the parliament, the national flag is raised, next to the European Union one. But Georgia is clearly East of anything most European would consider...European....with for his neighbors, Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. So welcome to Central Asia! We had a 2 hours flight to Baku where the plane just let few people go. Azerbaijan, I'll stop here one day...one day...than we did a short hop to Tbilisi.
First impression, very nice welcome at immigration once we landing. First good point. We hopped on the local bus, for the 18km into town. For
these first two nights, we are staying in a youth hostel right in the middle of Old Tbilisi. Well, over the total of three nights we stay at Envoy Hostel, we had the hostel basically to us...and the staff....you can call this low season! I tried to find as many info as I could on Tbilisi online, and till you cannot find a lot of it. Look at Travelblog for example...I think there are more blogs on Thailand every week....than on Georgia over the last 10 years! So the Hostel would guaranteed us some extra inside info about the city...and not the one you receive from the concierge of a 5 star hotels!
We basically did two stays in Tbilisi...and in between...some snow, coming soon on the next entry....
Not many tourists around, or shall I simply write, no tourists outside...we hear some Russian, that I could be mistaken for Ukrainian....and than I have to admit, finding the difference between somebody from Georgia, Armenia or even Azerbaijan, well, my eye and ear are not yet well train in this respect!
The city is actually very interesting. Lots of fortified walls around...in
good or bad condition. Seems this city has been destroyed a grand total of some 29 times! The topography clearly make it for a nice battle ground! I had no idea prior to this trip about the history of Georgia. Let say the country has been independent from 1918 to 1921...and than after the Soviet Occupation, the country is one more time independent since 1991. Even with independence, it doesn't stop the area to be not the most stable one....you may have heard of South Oscetia, and Abkhazia, two regions who have virtually separated from Georgia, and who rather under the influence of Russia.
We spent a lot of time walking the street of Tbilisi, as well as Old Tbilisi. This is a pretty serene place, architecture is a full mix of...a lot of different things...and money could be more than wisely used to refresh a lot of areas. Let say there are a certain number of "ruins" right into town.
Georgia...yes, it's also about food...and we had indeed some pretty nice one. Great to visit in winter...as the food is rather on the heavy side here. Just have a look at the local
supermarkets...fresh veggies in February....not really the place! I find it slightly difficult to pronounce most of the food we had here...but great food it was!
Next, the wine...and here I did try few things. Most if not all grapes are only found here...so it's not easy to understand exactly what is going on. They have a local specialty of ageing they wine in amphora...I tried it, but nothing will change a nice oak barrel for me. As you can guess, I'm bringing back some pretty decent wine back in Bangkok in a few days time. You can find also vodka everywhere, and Brandy...but for the "local Cognac", it will be rather on one of next stops...One thing for sure, it seems easier to find alcohol in this city, than fresh veggies!
We did also took the cable car to the Narikala Fortress to enjoy some nice views of this rather big city. And yes, taking the soviet era metro is also an experience. Just to witness the fact that the locals here do dress in black, or in nuances of black....trust me, with my red glasses, they know I'm not from here. People may
be consider a little "rough" here...but anytime we needed some help, they truly help and
Will we come back to Tbilisi....the answer is yes...just for what is coming in the next blog entry.
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