Richard's Travel Blog

Romulus and Remus, suckled by a she-wolf, went on to found Rome

Myung and I talked about going to Italy for a long time. She had never been to Europe at all. So finally, we went, for five weeks. Italy is obviously a country where one could spend a lot more time, but we figured that five weeks would be long enough for us at this point in our traveling lives. Endless backpacking is over for us. The only question was, do we make it open-ended and come back when we felt like it, or just buy round trip tickets and plan to return on a specific date? We chose the latter, also figuring we could change the return date for a charge. It turned out that five weeks was a good amount of time. We were ready to come back home right about then.

Our itinerary was to begin in Rome, where we landed, then go to Venice, Florence, more of Tuscany, Salerno/ Pompeii, and finally Sicily. We mostly went to places tourists usually go, but also had the time to wander a certain amount by not being compulsive about seeing “everything”. I uploaded not too many photos. Most people have seen many pictures of Italy, and I don’t need to show too much of what everybody has already seen many times.

In Rome, we went to three or four of the most popular museums. There is something about seeing famous art in person. You get better appreciation, of course. I most wanted to see Bernini’s sculptures, which I didn’t have a memory of from 44 years ago. In fact, I didn’t really remember seeing them at all.

I suggest you go to Full Screen to view the photos. Most of them are tall and you won’t be able to see the whole photo without scrolling down through it.

Bernini’s Rape of Persephone

Everybody appreciates how Pluto’s fingers grip Persephone’s soft thigh.

How many pictures do we have of ruins? Too many. You’ve seen hundreds of those pictures, and I don’t have any which offer any new perspectives. So here’s the one I’ll post. You’ve seen it, too.

The Forum

Altogether, we spent six days in Rome. That was enough. We saw museums, ruins, the Vatican, lots of art, Appian Way, other notable places, and wandered. We had our semi-timeline, and the crowds and city business were becoming oppressive (though it’s much worse during the tourist season), so it was time to go. That said, it’s not too hard to lose the crowd. There are nice places to chill out and get a view.

View up the Arno River

From there, we took the train to Venice. To me, Venice is practically a theme park. Myung wanted to see it, though, which is reasonable if you’ve never seen it. We wandered around there for three days, seeing the usual stuff, taking the usual pictures, enjoying the narrow alleys and bridges, watching glassblowing on Murano, and riding around on the vaporetto water buses. Here are a few photos. I’ll spare you St. Mark’s.

Grand Canal in Venice

Ponte di Rialto, Venice

Bridge of Sighs, Venice

Looking out our Airbnb apartment window in Venice

From there, it was off to Florence. Again, we did things one would expect with a few days in Florence. It was here where we started to focus on the food.

Sandwich joint in the Mercato Centrale,
Florence

The Uffizi Gallery was the highlight. We have photos from in there, lots of them, but you can look at them online. I’ll just post these of Florence.

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

Florence from the dome
of the cathedral

Then we spent a couple of days in Siena. I liked Siena. No crowds. It seemed very liveable to me. It’s got its medieval and Renaissance sites, but it’s functional.

Street in Siena, Tuscany

After that, we did one of the things I was looking forward to, driving around Tuscany. Though driving in the little lanes of medieval towns was not fun, but it was fun to cruise around leisurely, looking at the countryside and having the freedom to explore without relying on public transportation, as good as that is in Italy. (Aside, few people pay on the buses in Italy. People just get on and get off where they like. The drivers don’t care.) Tuscany is full of quaint towns and villages, perfect for strolling through picturesque lanes in these old places. We went around Val d’Orcia, Pienza, San Gimignano, Montepulciano, Pitigliano, Sovana and a couple of places I can’t remember right now. For the most part, these places are well-known destinations, but at this time of the year, it is pretty quiet. In fact, the economies are dependent on tourists, so many hotels, restaurants and shops are closed. Fortunately, Airbnb’s are almost always available, and that’s where we stay almost all the time.

Old gated path, somewhere in Tuscany

Sovana, Tuscany

Above is Pitigliano.

Typical restaurant with a view in Tuscany

From there, we went all the way down to Salerno. We wanted to go to Sicily, and Salerno is on the way. We thought about going to Naples, but decided not to tackle another big city just then. Salerno is nice, another liveable city with sites for the tourist.

Medieval aqueducts
Salerno

And it’s close to Pompeii. Both of us have interest in ancient history, so Pompeii was a must. We were going to see the Greek temple near Paestum, but skipped it because we were going to Sicily, where there is a lot of that.

Pompeii is a lot of this.

Floor mosaics in Pompeii

Victims in Pompeii

We also took the ferry to one of the most popular towns on the Amalfi Coast, Positano. Nice ride. Sort of crowded again. though.

Positano, Amalfi Coast

Positano, Amalfi Coast

From there, we went to Sicily. They just roll the train cars onto the ferry, and you continue on from Messina.

Train cars onboard ferry from Italian mainland to Sicily.

We rented a car again. Driving westward on the southern coast, the first stop was Taormina. Taormina is probably the most popular tourist destination in Sicily, outside of Palermo. It is most famous for the Greek amphitheater.

Greek Amphitheater
Taormina, Sicily

Greek amphitheater
Taormina, Sicily

But it’s plenty nice all over town. A couple of days there is just about right.

Modern construction on ancient wall in Taormina, Sicily

Stairway in Taormina,
Sicily

Then we went to Ortigia, old town Syracuse.

Ortigia

Then it was on to the picturesque towns of Noto and Ragussa, with their cute, narrow lanes.

Stairway in Noto

Ragusa

Duomo in Ragusa

Ragusa

Then we went to Agrigento, where the Talley of Temples is. There are a couple of kilometers of Greek ruins there.

Greek temple in the Valley of Temples

Greek temple in the Valley of Temples

Finally, our time in Italy was winding down. We spent the last few days in Palermo. Palermo is definitely a big, busy city, but had a rich history. One can easily walk around there for several days.

Piazza Pretoria, dominated by the Fountain of Shame, so called because the statues were considered scandalous in the18th century. Some even thought the waters caused syphilis.

Palermo Cathedral

Ballaro Market in Palermo

I could go on and on with photos of monumental buildings, fountains and the like. but this post getting too long. So I’m going to wrap this up. Oh, wait. There are the scrumptious intestine burgers. They really are good.

Intestine “burger” in Palermp

I’ve skipped over a lot, like churches and food. I did want to add these two items because I like the photo and the video of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo.

Inside the Church of the Gesu (Jesuits) in Palermo

Okay. So this is it. I’m done. In conclusion, we had a great time.

Be well, all of you.

Hi y’all. I hope you had a happy holiday season. Myung and I didn’t celebrate Christmas, as it’s not a big deal here in Korea. We did, however, get out of town again. This time, we went to Taiwan from Dec 27 to Jan 6. We were going to stay till the 12th, but came back early. I’ll write about that at the end.

We had been wanting to go to Taiwan for years, but never got around to it. Finally, we just went. Winter is the best season to go, as it’s hot nine months out of the year. Plus, we got tired of the cold here. As I think I have mentioned, we watch the nightly travelogue on one of the educational TV channels here. Taiwan has been on the show a few times, and that helped create the itch. The food looked great, so we went with the intention of eating. Boy, did we do that! There aren’t many restaurants in Taiwan. The culture is to eat in one of the thousands of hole-in-the-wall joints, sitting on a plastic stool or taking the food with you. Myung often takes photos of the food, but she didn’t this time. I think those pics are boring for most people, anyway. I’ll just say, it was good to be eating Chinese food again. I think it’s the best in the world, certainly for the price. These little “restaurants” are only slightly more expensive than at the night markets. For those of you who don’t know night markets, they are areas, usually a blocked-off street or a parking lot where sometimes many food vendors set up stands and serve food to carry till you get to the next stand. They are most popular in tropical countries where it’s hot and muggy during the day, and going outside in the relatively cool evening is an enjoyable relief.

So, I’ll go chronologically with what we did. The main international airport near the capital, Taipei, is actually in Taoyuan. I booked us an airbnb place to stay there, and spent three days and four nights. I learned a long time ago that it’s good to plan nothing upon arrival and to allow a day to get settled. What to do almost always presents itself. Often, you, or at least I, need a day to recover from jet lag, though this time the flight is only 2 1/2 hours and one time zone away. We walked around, eating, and looking at what Taiwan looks like. Then we went to a couple of museums. There is a nice park near where we stayed.

One of the attractions “everybody” sees is the Mazu temples. I’ll get to that in a minute. Besides the museums and that park, there are a couple of other places not worth really mentioning here. So I’ll skip to Tainan.

We rented a car from this little two-car rent-a-car business and went to Tainan by way of Alishan National Park. We would have done some hiking or something there, but it was the long New Year holiday and the crowds around there were awful. You couldn’t even park near anything good, so we bagged it and went on to Tainan.

Tainan was the capital till the 1880’s. Lots of traditional Taiwan culture there, compared to Taoyuan. Taoyuan/Taipei is like Orange County/Los Angeles, as in why would you go?. We got there on New Years Eve. On New Years Day, we figured nothing would be open, which is pretty much the case, but we did happen by a Mazu Temple where they were preparing a big parade, Very big, like an Indian puja. I know little about Mazu. I just say Mazuism is a traditional religion centered on Mazu, the Goddess of the Sea. There are elements of Buddhism and Taoism, but that is basically all I knew. I read about it on Wikipedia. If you are interested, here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazu

There are hundreds of these temples in Taiwan.

Mazu temple

Mazu temple

The insides of the temples all look pretty much like this. I don’t know about all the demigods. I did read that they can be loosely compared with Buddhist bodisatvas.

We were walking around, looking for something to do, when we happened across alleys filled with people preparing for a parade. All were dressed as Mazu figures. Then they filed out. It turns out that this parade is a thing. Many people lined the streets to see it, including Western tourists who were clearly more informed than me.

I think it was the next day, we went to a famous old house overgrown by banyan trees. Reminded me of Angkor Wat, though not nearly that impressive.

Another nice park was near there. Having a car was nice. Just go here, just go there.

The main thing to do in Tainan is going to the national historical museum. It really made Taiwan history interesting. It didn’t pull punches on what it was like when the nationalists first came over in 1949. The grounds outside and the building are beautiful.

After Tainan, we went to the most famous scenic attraction in Taiwan, Taroko National Park, where the Taroko Gorge is. Nice place. If you’re totally jaded about natural wonders, I suppose you wouldn’t think it was great. But I’m jaded, and I still liked it and the road over the mountains of Taiwan’s interior.

“Cloud sea” below a high point on the road to Taroko. It really looks like you are looking down on a body of water.

Taroko Gorge

Tribute to the hundred and something workers who died building the road through Taroko Gorge.

The west side of the island is flat, and that is where nearly all the 23 million people live. Only towns are along the east coast. The mountains go straight up from there.

Beach in Hualien

Hualien was the last place we stayed in Taiwan. The plan was to go up the east cost, then spend 5 days in Taipei. Unfortunately, a big truck smashed into our parked rent-a-car. We were in it, but were not hurt. That was that for the car. We just came home.

All in all, it was a good vacation except, of course, for that last afternoon. Taiwan is surprisingly mellow for a crowded little country, except for New Years Eve in Alishan. I wish we could have gone to Taipei. I really wanted to see the treasures brought over by the retreating nationalists. Maybe next time.

With that, until next time, be well, all of you.

Wow! That sign makes it seem like Trabzon is a must-see destination, like Dollywood. Well, Trabzon is a destination, but almost only because it’s in Turkey, where I hadn’t been since 1974. So, it’s worth it for that reason.

When I’m on a long trip, like a month or more, every few weeks, I need downtime. If Trabzon had captured my imagination, I could have gotten up the energy to be busier, like seeing every little thing, taking buses here and there, bothering to learn more about the culture, and stuff like that. After all, a month isn’t long compared with my previous life on the road. But I didn’t feel like it. And I don’t have to. So there! Myung had more energy, but she’s lived on the road before, too. Filling the day is not a goal in itself for her, either.

I anticipated enjoying Turkish food. Since you have to eat, Turkey is one of the best places to do that. Even the cheap grub is good. It’s all inexpensive, actually, even less expensive than Georgia.

Pizza in Trabzon They transliterate it “pide”. The photo doesn’t do justice to how tasty this is.

Bread is nearly free, and sooo good. Wheat flour or bakers must be subsidized. Meals almost always come with all the bread you can eat, even if you’re having a $2 bowl of soup.

This isn’t just cheap white bread. Even the white bread is hearty.

My impression of Turkey? I’m still pretty jaded about observing new cultures. My impression was that Trabzon, at least, was quite modern, compared to 50 years ago. Which is no surprise at all, duh. The world is modernizing in much the same way everywhere. The eating and shopping experience is getting uniform. Conveniences are commonplace. Travel is easy. Internet really changed everything, making travel easy. You hardly need any skills or courage. Turkey could be thought of as an exotic destination, but about 90% of people could go there in their sleep, especially if they just drift around.

Market in Trbzon

Tea is definitely a thing there. Myung bought some to take home.

Side by side by side tea shops. Or, have a Coke.

Certainly, there is much to learn about Turkey, but in my week there, I just took it easy. Myung had more intent, but I wonder how much she will retain.

Trazdon is a Black Sea coastal city about 200 km, a 3-hour bus ride, from Batumi, Georgia. Actually, it’s two bus rides because you have to go 13 km from Batumi to the border, then continue on. The border crossing is a breeze. The coast around there, and in Georgia, is pretty. Not Big Sur, but better than Florida. Right behind the coastal strip are mountains. In places, these mountains are quite high, snow covered and scenic. It looks a bit like viewing the Andes from just inland from the Chilean coast, if you’ve ever been there.

Here’s sort of a view from a pleasant boardwalk at a mirador call Boztepe.

Boztepe

You can see how it goes up right away, as soon as you get away from the coastal strip.

There’s a nice botanical garden, though not as nice as in Batumi.

Botanical garden Trabzon

Botanical garden Trabzon

Botanical garden Trabzon

We mostly just walked the streets for the week we were there. There is a crumbly castle wall, one of Kemal Ataturk’s homes, some okay museums and such. We got out of town three times. One day we went to Sumela monastery. Another day we went to a resorty scenic lake, called Uzingol. And another day we took a two-hour ride to Giresun, in the next province. (There are 81 small provinces in Turkey.)

Sumela monastery is a World Heritage Site worth going to. It was originally constructed in the 4th century. Then it was enlarged during Justinian’s reign. Then it was destroyed by the Byzantines in the 7th century. Most of what you see now, including the frescoes, is from the 11th century.

Sumela monastery

Medieval frescoes ain Sumela monastery

Here’s Uingol. Not so fantastic, but hey, it’s there.

Uzingol

Here’s Giresun. The view of the city from the heights is like Trabzon. We mostly went there to enjoy the ride along the coast.

Giresun

We stayed in Turkey till it was time to go home. We went back to Batumi, spent the night, took the train to Tbilisi, spent another night, then hung around in town till our plane left at 10:15 PM. Yuk! What a grueling trip home that was, first taking that red-eye to Doha, then the 9 hour flight to Seoul, then back to Gyeongju from there. I wish I could sleep on planes.

I gotta show you our airbnb in Tbilisi. Believe it or not, it was nice inside.

If you’ve never been to the Doha, Qatar airport, here’s what the terminal looks like. It’s like an arboretum, complete with cool mist.

Doha, Qatar airport

So, that’s it for this trip. I suppose we’ll go someplace else again, someday. My need to travel is sated for now.

Again, I welcome any comments. I’d like to know who, if anyone, reads this.

In any case, be well, all of you.

Myung’s Josif Stalin refrigerator magnet

From Mestia, we went to Batumi. Batumi is on the Black Sea coast. It’s Georgia’s main port and, for sure, it’s like port cities everywhere, with many trucks, containers, and other loading and hauling facilities in that part of town. Travelers don’t need to explore that. They will go downtown, to the old town, the parks and the rocky beach.

We went out the night we arrived. The shoreline is a popular stroll for visitors and locals alike. Since it was after dark, we didn’t take many pictures. Nothing is lit up that you could photograph during the day. There is one attraction meant to be viewed at night, the Ali and Nino statues. In short, “Ali and Nino” is a tragic romance novel about a Muslim Azerbaijani man and a Christian Georgian woman during the tumultuous Russian revolution/World War One years. The brightly lit, mechanical statues oof the ill-fated couple come together and separate, like in the novel.

Well, these pictures don’t do it justice, but it is pretty cool, the way these maybe 40 foot tall statues, made of strips of metal move through each other. I cannot figure out how they did this.

After sitting in the big park for an outdoor opera recital with live orchestra, the weather started to deteriorate, so we went to our airbnb apartment and rode out a pretty wild thunder and lightning storm. The weather was bad for a couple of days, after which we went out to the shoreline.

I don’t know what that geodesic dome is. The rocks here are actually pretty nice.

Just off the beach is a nice park, very large for a city of only 155,000.

That general area is Old Town with, you guessed it, old buildings.

Note the Bolt car. Bolt is a European equivalent to Uber. It’s cheap and easy. We used it a lot.

Much of old town is uninspiring. In fact, there are a lot of casinos and faux upscale restaurants (as well as real upscale restaurants). I think Batumi city is a one-day town.

By far, the best thing we did there was go to the wonderful botanical garden, a few kilometers out of town. It’s big, and a nice afternoon walk,

After doing the stuff I described, it was time to go. Since we were back in Korea, Myung had been talking about crossing the border, 13 km south of Batumi, to visit around Trabzon, Turkey. So that’s where we went next and where we are now. We’ll stay around here until it’s time to return to Tbilisi and fly home. We’ll be going back through Batumi and killing an afternoon and night there before taking the train, but I doubt we’ll do anything worth posting.

I’ll blog about Trabzon and around there in the next post. Meanwhile, until then…

They say the Caucasus Mountains is the Switzerland of Eastern Europe. I’ve also heard “poor man’s Switzerland”.  Switzerland about 200 years ago, I think.

The town of Mestia is in the Svaneti region of northern Georgia. The 80,000 Svan people are a sub-group of Georgian people, and about 30,000 speak their own language similar to Old Georgian. My point is that it feels very different around there. You first notice it when listening to chatter in the street. The next thing I think I notice is they come off as a little gruff. Not this guy, though. We bummed a ride from him and he was very nice.

No matter. If you want to go somewhere within Georgia with a different feel, you can get that different feeling here.

A large part of Svaneti’s prosperity, such as it is, comes from tourism. Mestia, with a population of about 10,000, feels almost like a tourist ghetto. Guesthouses, bars and nice restaurants everywhere. I don’t mind. I’ve given up trying to meaningfully penetrate foreign cultures. I just eat the food, interact casually sometimes (like with that guy above), and take in the visuals.

Do not disparage the visuals here. This is as lovely a place you will ever see. It’s why they get the comparison with Switzerland. It’s why the tourists come.

Most intercity travel here is by 18 passenger commuter vans, mostly Mercedes Benz Sprinters, called marshrutkas. We took the marshrutka from Kutaisi to Mestia, the principal town in Svaneti. Since it is a popular vacation and destination, there were plenty of airbnb options. We picked a cabin a couple of hundred meters away from the town center, by the river. You never really know what you’re going to get with airbnb until you get there, but we guessed right again.

We stayed in one of the six cabins near the river in Mestia. You hear the river at night, not the town sounds.

View from our porch of a little church across the river.

Autumn colors

Autumn colors

I’m just throwing in this next photo. This is the entrance gate to the group of six cabins where our cabin was. Cows roam around all over Georgian towns, sort of like in India. Nobody pays them much mind. Sometimes they are bad boys and girls. We caught this one pilfering a bag of dough, it looked like, from the bed of this pick up truck. The owner chased it off, but obviously the dough was ruined with cow slobber.

Overlooking Mestia

Mestia

The distinguishing feature of Svaneti is these towers. Most of them were built from the 9th to the 12 centuries, though some were built as recently as the 18th century. Some are still in use. They served a defensive purpose, not so much against raiders, but to protect families from each other. Until about a hundred years ago, blood revenge was a custom. Like the legendary Hatfield and McCoy feud in America, there was violence between families whereby if/when a dispute resulted in a killing, the aggrieved family would go after the offending family. These structured provided protection as well as serving as living quarters and storage. When the Bolsheviks took over in 1921, they put a stop to that.

Svaneti tower

We went into one in Ushguli. It’s hard to imagine functioning in these cramped quarters, with successive ladders going up usually four or five floors.

Me, climbing down a ladder in a Svaneti tower.

View from the “window” of a Svaneti tower.

This area is a trekkers wonderland. All we did was hike up to a glacier near Mestia.  Nice walk. Not so long that we got gassed.

Foot bridge over the river at the beginning of the walk to the glacier,

Footbridge over the river at the beginning of the trail to the glacier.

Small glacier near Mestia

Another popular thing the tourists do is go to Ushguli, a village about an hour from Mestia. It must have been incredibly poor back in the day. Now, we tourists walk all around the place, taking photos, having a coffee, a beer, a glass of famous Georgian wine, or staying the night.

Ushguli. The road to here is pretty rough, but some of it nearer to Mestia is paved.

Ushguli

Ushguli

Ushguli

As you can imagine, we probably have a hundred photos. I’m about to call it quits on this post. I wanted to include this picture of traditional Georgian bread. We’ve been eating a ton of it. Tasty and only about 50 US cents.

Myung looks like The Masked Singer here behind this bread.

We’ve been eating good restaurant food a lot, even though we get airbnb’s with kitchens.

Dinner in Mestia

Okay, that’s finally it.

I’m writing this in Batumi, where we went after Mestia. It’s on the Black Sea coast, 13 km from the Turkish border. I’ll write about it when I can. I don’t know when that will be. From here, we decided to go over the border to Trabzon, Turkey. From the travel literature, it looks interesting. I’ll let you know. If we are busy there, I may not feel like blogging. It’s actually pretty time-consuming to edit and upload photos.

So, until then, be well, all of you.

Well, I wrote that I’d blog again in Batumi, but we aren’t doing much today, so I’ll do one on Kutaisi and around there.

Colchis Fountain in the center of Kutaisi

Kutaisi has a long history, and I invite you to go to Wikipedia for all that. For me, knowing that it’s steeped in tradition is enough. Like Tbilisi, it is a great place to walk around, maybe better because it’s only about a tenth the size and not at all hectic. There are many photo ops. Here are some of my pictures. A good site to look at professional photos is Wanderlush.  https://wander-lush.org/things-to-do-in-kutaisi-georgia/

As in Tbilisi, we didn’t take the city tour. We just wandered around taking pictures.

Murals are everywhere. Look at a few more on Wanderlush.

Gelati Monastery. A World Heritage site

13th century frescoes in the monastery

Looking straight up in the monastery

Motsameta Monastery

Not far from Kutaisi is Chiatura, most famous for this small temple on top of a rock pillar.

Katskhi pillar and temple

At the base of Katskhi pillar

Small monastery near the pillar

Church on the face of a nearby hill

From Kutaisi, we went to Mestia, where we are now. I’ll blog about this area after we leave.

Tomorrow, we go to Batumi, Georgia’s second largest city, with 155,000 inhabitants. It’s got a long history, too, of course, So we’ll be looking at the old town and whatever else is around there. It’s Georgia’s main seaport on the Black Sea, but we probably won’t gaze at the containers. More likely, we’ll check out the beach.

Until then…

Hi y’all. I’m writing this the day after publishing that last post. We’re kind of taking a day off today, so it’s a good time to catch up to the present. We’re in Mestia, and will go on to Batumi tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain for the next four days, so maybe catching up will be easy, while spending a lot of time inside our airbnb apartment.

So, this one’s about Kazbegi, technically what they call a municipality in Georgia. The town itself is called Stepantsminda. It’s a popular mountain destination north of Tbilisi, famous for its mountainous terrain, skiing in the winter, hiking trails ad as an access point to Russia, a few kilometers to the north. Many big trucks go through there, mostly bringing products from Russia. They aren’t too obnoxious. This isn’t like a major US/Mexico border crossing.

Visitors here generally chill out. The big thing to do is walk a few kilometers up to the Gergeti Trinity Church to the west.

Snow-capped Mt. Kazbegi is 5054 meters. On the top of the nearer hill, on the left, is Gergeti Trinity Church.

That picture was taken from the lane a block above our airbnb place.

Our airbnb in Kazbegi

View from our front porch in Kazbegi. Chechnya is on the other side of that ridge.

Mostly, we just walked around and looked at the buildings and the different views. You can see the flat stones used for construction on the building to the right above. Here are a couple more.

Old style building still in use in Kazbegi

Old style commercial building still in use in Kazbegi

A lot of times, it looks like the buildings are abandoned, and often they are, then you see modern window and door frames, people inside, curtains, etc.

Like many visitors, we went up to the church. Not too bad. Takes about an hour and a half.

That’s me, about two-thirds of the way up to the church.

Uphill to Gergeti Trinity Church? No problem for Myung. She’s a friggin’ mountain goat. Queue “Zorba the Greek”

Gergeti Trinity Church, in the mountain west of Kazbegi

Gergeti Trinity Church

Mestia is even nicer, so I’ll spare you more photos from Kazbegi.

When we came to Georgia, we didn’t have much of a plan. When we traveled before, it was open-ended, basically living on the road. We’re here for a little over a month, so it’s not living on the road, but it’s not if-it’s-Tuesday-this-must-be-Belgium either. Kind of a hybrid. We feel like we should “do” something every day, but aren’t compulsive about it. Like, today is one of those days. It’s a pretty easy life. One thing I did right was retire early and hit the road. I wouldn’t want to do it alone anymore, though. Sharing the experience is important. You need witnesses. At least Myung knows.

That’s part of the reason I wrote these posts.

I’ll blog again from Batumi in a couple of days. Until then…

I am curious to know if anyone will read my blog. Myung and I don’t travel much these days, so I don’t blog.

But… We’ve gone to Georgia, the country. This is Richard’s Travel Blog, and we are definitely traveling. So, I’d love it if anyone feels like leaving a comment.

First a word about our life in Korea. Since my last post in 2021, we are still living in the same apartment in Gyeongju. In short, we have a pretty basic domesticated life. We still walk around a lot, especially by American standards. I look at stuff online when I’m not performing activities of daily living. We go places nearby. We drove around Korea for a couple of weeks a while ago. Myung is taking a Korean history course, with field trips. And she has friends from when she was a school kid. That’s really about it.

One thing we do is watch a nightly travelogue on TV. They go to a different country every week. Georgia has been the destination a couple of times. It looked good, so we got out of Dodge. Right now, we are in Mestia, up in the Caucasus Mountains, just below the border with Russia to the north.

But let me start with Tbilisi, the capital, where we arrived.

Overview of Tbilisi. That round ball is a hot air balloon

Georgia has a population of 3.7 million. About a third of them live in Tbilisi. I think this is a real nice city. The old city is crumbling, but there are enough visitors and tourists to keep it alive. Georgia is no Germany, but the center of Tbilisi is fairly modern and full of things to see and places to eat/drink. There are many photo opportunities.

And it’s cheap. Our big two bedroom airbnb apartment, three blocks from the dead center of downtown, Liberty Circle (formerly Lenin Circle), was $37/night. You can get a huge amount of decent food at an old Soviet style cafeteria (but with way better food than back in those days) for about $7. Or you can have white tablecloth, candles, Starbucks cool jazz, and steak for about $20. Our trip is going to be over a month long, so cheap is good.

Too much text and no photos, and I think nobody will stick with it and comment. Here come some street shots.

Typical street in the fashionable part of downtown Tbilisi

Much of Tbilisi is very hilly.

Friendship Bridge over the Kura River

12th century fortress

Fortress from a distance

Rezo Gabriadze Puppet Theater and Clock Tower

Tbilisi wasn’t always the capital of Georgia. The area of the city of Mtskheta  is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, starting late bronze age. It became the capital of the Georgian kingdom of Iberia in the 3rd century BC until the capital was moved to Tbilisi in the 6th century AD. Interesting side note, Georgian and Basque are the only languages in the Iberian language group. Mtskheta is where the Georgian Orthodox Church was founded and still where they have their headquarters.

This is the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.

In the distance is the Jvari Monastery.

Jvari Monastery

Here are some other photos from Mtskheta.

Uplistsikhe is a cave city about 50 miles northwest of Tbilisi. It started out as modified natural caves about 3000 years ago. Most of it was hewn out during the 8th-10th centuries. That’s a 15th century church on top.

Finally, for this post, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we went by Gori, Joseph Stalin’s birthplace and childhood home. There is a museum there, which is actually halfway interesting. Many photos and memorabilia, which almost seem campy now. His private train car is interesting. But I’ll just leave you with a couple of pictures. One is of his chilhood home, enshrined in a neoclassical monument. The other is a selection of Joe Stalin t-shirts you can buy at the souvenir shop.

Is that a fitting way to end this post, or what?

My next post should be up in a couple of days. We are going to chill out tomorrow, so it’s likely I can get it done then. It kind of depends on 1) if we decide to be busy, and 2) if the internet server here can handle uploading my photos along with it’s usual traffic.

Until then, be well, all of you.

Peek-a boo

It’s been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegon. I keep thinking I’ll write more often from now on but, really, there’s not much going on. I could probably just copy and paste my March entry. Myung and I just hang out, go walking, shop the markets, cook, and sit with our computers. Myung sees friends from way back about once a week on average. Actually, this week, she saw friends twice and her sister and brother-in-law this week. We’re practically social butterflies!

Myung on the right, with old friends from middle school

After looking back at what I wrote in March, a brief update is in order. My prostate situation is in hand. I went to a urological oncologist at the university hospital here. He said for my type and stage of cancer, at my age (69), all they do is monitor my PSA, and if it goes over 20, start androgen deprivation medication again. My PSA was 2, and I am to get my PSA checked again in October. And a doc removed that toenail, something I couldn’t get anybody in Cuenca to do. That looks good. National health care here is great. It costs 45 US cents for a basic sit down with a rando doc-in-the-box at the clinic. Myung is fine.

Oh, we got our first COVID-19 vaccines, and get the second shot in August. Starting this month, people don’t have to wear masks outside. That’s a relief. They are uncomfortable on warm, humid days. Some Americans might wonder what “have to wear masks” means. Well, Koreans almost all take infection control seriously, and follow the strict rules laid out by the government. Only about 2 people per day die.

People here are into what happens during the seasons. (Seasons. What a concept after Cuenca!) One activity many people like is the presence of hoopoes, a bird that migrates here form Tasmania and East Africa in the spring to hatch their young. Photographers with their expensive camera equipment congregate in Hwangsoeng Park, down the street, to catch events like the first flight of the young birds.

We’re in on the fun, and have many hoopoe pics, though Myung took this one with her $90 cell phone. When we walk in the park, which is every day, we look for hoopoes. Ah, simple pleasures.

Hoopoe, feeding its chick

One of the simple pleasures we enjoy is how pretty Korea is. As I’ve said before, you are never far from a nice walk.

Back in April

Near Busan

9th century stone carving of the Buddha

A couple of weeks ago we took a 40-minute train ride to Yeongju. It’s an ancient historical site, with structures dating back to the 7th century, though most of the preserved and/or restored sites are from the neo-Confucian era which began in the 14th century. Yeongju was an important Silla and Unifed Silla dynasty site, later renowned as a Confucian learning center. The photo below is of a restored Confucian hall with a 9th century Buddhist stupa in the foreground.

I’ll spare you any more tedious historical information, and just post photos.

We stayed the night in this 300-year-old house.

Near Yeongju, is a big botanical garden called Bonghwa. Oh, we have so many flower pictures, but here are a few of lotuses.

Funny thing… Way up in the north part of the park is an about 5 acre enclosure for a Siberian tiger. I read that Siberian tigers migrate into the far north of North Korea, near where Russia and Heilongjong, China meet, but there are definitely no tigers down here anymore.

Here was a nice place around there.

That’s going to do it for now. I hope you Americans had a good 4th of July. Be well, all of you.

Well, mostly cherry blossoms. Spring has really sprung around here. It’s lovely. I’ve seen cherry blossoms, but I’ve never lived in a place where they are prevalent, and I could see them everywhere.  Gyeongju has thousands of these blooming cherry trees right now, and it’s a sight to behold. These photos are not so good, but they give you an idea of what it looks like. What you don’t see is they are everywhere. They’ll probably be around in abundance for another week or so. Some trees in cool, shady areas are coming along a little later. Here goes:

Even the croquet courts in the park down the street look nice. (Koreans call it gate ball)

Here are a couple of not-cherry blossom photos.

Very typical Gyeongju, with the ancient tombs in the background, old-style but modern buildings, and flowers in the spring

No bunch of photos of Gyeongju would be complete without yet another 1200-1300 year old Buddha carving. I am little (lower right) compared to them.

Obviously I got here. In addition, I got my green card, which is blue here. I’m even in the health insurance system. Now, the next thing to take care of is following up on my prostate cancer. Hopefully, I am indeed six years out now. I’ve also got a bad toenail. I screwed it up in Torres de Paine, Patagonia, back in 2010, and it’s been nasty ever since.

Does that qualify as news that’s fit to print? It’s probably fit, just boring. Myung and I are back into our routines. These days we are going somewhere to look at cherry blossoms. They will be gone so soon. Tomorrow a friend of hers is coming over, and we’re going to Bomun Lake, which you saw two or three posts ago. Nothing is on tap for next week.

So, I’m going to fire this off. Be well, all of you. And be safe.