The Cave Monastery at Vardzia

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I hadn't initially planned on a second entry from Georgia, but this one place left a bit of an impression on me and I want to tell you about it. So: a short-ish entry fuelled only by my enthusiasm. I returned from my week in Armenia with enough time to try and knock off the cave monastery of Vardzia. The guidebook says you should try to see either David Gareja monastery or this one. I hadn't heard of Vardzia before I left the UK, but saw an article on it in someone's in-flight magazine and with pictures like that, I had to go.

Didube bus station once more in Tbilisi and again I'm looking for a marshrutka. Again, I have a name and telephone number in my pocket, with the assurance from Irina at the Tbilisi homestay that this guy will be there, and his house has a room and spare beds. The marshrutka is supposed to leave around 9am, but Vardzia is in a remote location not well-travelled by tourists, so maybe it will take a while to fill up. I made sure to arrive early at 8:30 and was the first one. Just after 10:00am we left, with 6 people.

Borjomi town about 12:30, and Akhaltsikhe about 1:45. Then after Akhaltsikhe the road went another 60-odd kilometres along a valley with mostly stony road and no tarmac. We slowed down and the marshrutka banged, rattled and tilted its way along, reminding me of Glenn, whom I drove too fast over the speed-bumps in the Hess car park one day having forgetten that he was still recovering from major back surgery. At the bottom of the valley is the Mtkvari River and near the end it gets steep enough to become a gorge. On the way we passed Khertvisi fortress, Vanis Quabedi monastery, then near the end, the castel on the rock at Tmogvi.

Tmogvi reminded me of Edinburgh Castle which looks pretty formidable enough. But I checked Edinburgh's history once and I seem to recall it was successfully taken a couple of times. Tmogvi never was and I can see why. It's a spectacular location, just like the rest of the valley and since I was only here for Vardzia I didn't see any of these other attractions. I'm going to have to return because there's such a lot to do in this one location. It would be rough travelling though, and it seems to me this would be good terrain for horses. If you knew places you could stable them overnight with feed, it would be a brilliant trip to spend 4 or 5 days exploring all the way down.

The marshrutka got me to Noshravan and Tina's house by just short of 4pm in the afternoon. Deep in the valley we got no sunset and it was going to get dark quick, but Noshravan insisted there was enough time so I hot-footed it the 2km to Vardzia. It dates from the 1100's but was severely damaged by an earthquake just 100 years later which exposed previously hidden chambers to the outside. Its life as a monastery was effectively finished by Persian raids in the 1500's but just these last few years, monks have returned to live there again and you'll probably run into one whilst you're looking around.

The pictures tell most of the story. I'm only sorry that it was so overcast on the day I was there, I hoped for sunshine but was unlucky, however there are some more pictures courtesy of Dalin and Gudi who did get a sunny day.

I don't recommend you take pets or small children, there are steep drop-offs and a refreshing lack of warning signs and handrails. Somebody not paying attention, or a curious 5-year old, could be over the edge in a second and they might not even get time to yell. But do take headtorches if you go. I discovered one stairway high-up that wasn't immediately obvious, leading to a chamber with steps cut into the floor. They led down and although I didn't tape-measure it, I reckon I went about 300 feet down a gently curving passage which started to curve back towards the outside. After a couple of minutes with nothing to orient myself I lost track of exactly which direction I was going, but emerged into a large chapel and a doorway around the edges of which were cracks of daylight.

How many men did it take to carve all this out? You can still see the chisel marks in the ceiling of each chamber. And how long did it all take?

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Photos

Tmogvi Castle
Not a great picture (too overcast) but I fiddled with the brightness and contrast so you can see more detail. The castle itself is just distinguishable on top of that rock on the right. The gorge continues past it on the left.

Vardzia I - from across the valley
Note the different coloured band of rock at top, I'm not sure (couldn't find anyone to tell me) if this was the line where the earthquake caused the rockslide.

Comments

[Sue]

amazing...
that place looks incredible..keep the entries coming and happy easter matey....love Sue Andy + Max x

[Adam]

Sweet!
Cool pictures, I want to go there someday. I would recommend you check out http://www.allaudioguides.com, they have great audio tours for every major tourist destination!

[Dovie]

quotable
I love it: "...a refreshing lack of warning signs..."

[Gordon Swift]

Vardzia
Blimey Mart, that place looks amazing, brings a whole new meaning to stone cladding and pebble dash! Keep up the blogging, it's nice to know someone who actually gets up off their rears and travels to such places. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it's a miserable, rainy day in Walthamstow.......Gordon.