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.