On the move: Visiting Georgia

Hey
It has been long since I posted here last time. Well anyway now there is a reason: incredible trip to Georgia!
It August we had a restaurant evening with the plan to organize a vacation trip for 7 people. At the beginning there was a reason to be skeptical: 7 persons with 7 very different ideas. This year one thing was made clear already long in advance: no bicycles on the trip. ... or our group will be 6 or even less people :) While keeping all this in mind and choosing between different options we were about to give up. At one moment the idea of visiting Georgia popped up and everybody liked it a lot.

With planning we kept it rather simple and didn't get too stressed (well at least I had this feeling), week before taking off we had the first more serious meeting to see what are the overall expectation and what could we do in Georgia. But this is all history.
At the end of September we were on the way to Tbilisi, Georgia.

Mtskheta

Nice Lada taxi that soon to be connected by rope with other Lada taxi, Mtskheta

Big door, Mtskheta

In short after 1 000 000 changes of our "very" detailed plan we...
1. Saw WINE by visiting Kacheti region. Besides wine we had an opportunity to pick grapes. 2 hours of actual work on the grape field to help our hosts collecting the harvest. Yes, maybe were used as slaves, but it was fun and great experience.

Last preparations before marsrutka hits the road

Market, Tbilisi

2. Saw MOUNTAINS. Only 3 hours taxi ride on the Georgian Military Highway from Tbilisi is Kazbegi village. The village is right next to mount Kazbek. Mount Kazbek with its 5033m is the second highest in Georgia and in the morning light it looked just amazingly beautiful. Hike to the top of Kazbek takes 2 days and special equipment is needed. We made it to 3200m. So far the highest place for me, but already at this altitude we witnessed the symptoms of height: pulse just jumps up even after only couple of very slow steps, headache. In Kazbegi we stayed 2.5 days.

Nature

The Georgian Military Highway to Kazbeg

Celebrating the highest point of Georgian Military Highway with our drivers. Wine is from Pepsi bottle, usually good wine in Georgia comes in Pepsi or Coca bottles.

Georgian Military Highway. In winter the tunnels are used to get over Caucasus, in summer sheep stay there and cars are taking the road right next to the tunnel.

Living in Caucasus mountains. Picture like a painting. One of my favorite scenes from the trip.

Kazbek, 5033m

Gergeti Trinity Church

Somewhere far down is also the Gergeti Trinity Church

Glacier

Entering the cloud

2 shadows

Uplistsikhe cave-town on the Mtkvari River. These small stage would be excellent place for a small exclusive concert under the summer night sky.

Farm house

View from the cave-town

Cave-town and its inhabitant :)

Another inhabitant :)

3. Saw the SEA. In our original plan we wanted to go to the Black Sea, then in Georgia we were convinced that our plan is too tight, so we skipped it as most of us had already seen the Black Sea from the Romanian side. But in Kazbegi we realized that by taking night trains and skipping Vardzia we can easily spend couple of days on the beach in Batumi. And this was one excellent idea. After villages without electicity, water and freezing nights in mountains it was very relaxing just to lay down on the beach and enjoy sun, swim. Yes, we started to miss the cows, pigs and other animals on the streets, but what can we do, Batumi was TOP 3rd resort destination in Soviet Union. Also nowadays it is in very good state: everything is clean, houses renovated and in the evening nicely lighted, beautiful boulevard, toilets not holes...