During the week, we took a couple of day trips to explore the countryside of Georgia. It was a beautiful country and we were surprised to see how agricultural, unpopulated, and undeveloped the country became as your you left Tbilisi. On one of our day trips, we visited the Kakheti region in Eastern Georgia and saw the historical town of Sighnaghi, the Bodbe Covenant, and visited a winery in Kvareli. Here we go…
It was about a two hour drive to Signaghi, a small town in eastern Georgia that is a popular tourist town because of it’s beautiful landscapes overlooking the Alazani Valley with a view of the Caucasus mountains, narrow cobblestone streets, and it is in heart one of Georgia’s wine regions (yes, there are several - Georgia is well known for it’s wine). Our first stop in town was to enjoy the beautiful scenery.
Next, we drove into the town to get lunch.
We tried a traditional Georgian cheesy bread dish called Khachapuri, which is a cheese filled bread that you can get with other toppings and is sometimes served with egg on top. We got the basic kind stuffed with just cheese and everyone enjoyed it, even Caleb who does not like cheese. Many restaurants served fresh fruit for dessert, which was refreshing on the hot days.
Then we visited the old walls of Signaghi.
Next, we visited the Bodbe Covenant, which is a monastery from the 17th century on the outskirts of Sighnaghi. The monastery still serves as a nunnery and is a major pilgrimage site in Georgia.
The monastery was beautiful, and there were nice gardens around the campus. It was a very peaceful setting.
Next we went to traveled to the city of Kvareli, a city close the Armenian and Iranian tri-border area, overlooking the Caucasus mountains and Alazani River valley, to visit the Khareba winery. Georgia is famous for its’ wine, and this winery used the old traditional wine making methods to make wines out of different indigenous grapes.
We had to wait a little for the wine tour to start, so we explored the grounds and enjoyed finding a shady spot to sit.
The wine tour was very interesting. The wine cave, that opened in 1962 for the World Congress of Vine and Wine, was carved into the rock. The temperature of the cave ranges from 12-16 degrees Celsius, making an ideal environment for wine storage. The wine tunnel is 7.7km long and has two main and 13 connecting tunnels. One of the connecting tunnels, the one we went through, is used for tourism, while the others are for the making and aging of wine The winery holds up to 26,000 bottles of wines that are up to 17 years old.
They talked about the ancient methods for making wine, which this winery still uses, which involves storing the wine underground in casks to age.
This was our tour guide Katie, who drove us from Ankara. She was a very sweet Georgian/Russian lady and she especially loved Eliza. The feeling was mutual, they bonded instantly.
The wines were so good! We tasted a few different red and white wines, and most had a nice sweetness and smoothness that you don’t taste in other wines. The main grape they use for the red wine is Saperavi, and for white wine is Rkatsiteli. We bought a bottle of the red sweet wine, it was one of our favorites.
The vineyard also has a restaurant overlooking the valley. After the wine tour, we enjoyed the views and ate dinner before starting the couple hour drive back to Tbilisi.
Georgians are big bread makers, you can get delicious fresh baked bread at all meals. We had lots of bread and chicken for this meal. They grilled it under the gazebo in front of Nathan and the boys. It was a really neat way to spend the day, and we are thankful to have been able to see this part of the country.
Another day we took a day trip to see the Jvari monastery, the old capital of Georgia Mtskheta, the cave town Uplistikhe, and Gori, the hometown of the old Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin. The first stop of the day was outside the city of Mtskheta, at the 6th century Georgian Orthodox monastery Jvari, which means Monastery of the Cross. This monastery has survived to present day almost unchanged was a beautiful example of Georgian architecture. The monastery was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. Approaching the monastery as we drove up Jvari hill.
Old ruins around the site.
View of Mtskheta, was the old capital until 5th century AD, and one of the oldest cities in Georgia, and is at the confluence of the Mktvari and Aragvi rivers. It is considered the a center for Christianity in Georgia in today’s time.
Entrance to the monastery
Next, we drove down into town to explore Mtsheka and to eat lunch. The town had old cobble stone streets lined with shops and markets. It was very quaint.
These are Georgian sweets…I’m not sure how they make them, but it’s candied sugary fruit dried along a string and you eat it right off the rope. On the right is a sweet, thin fruit flavored bread. We enjoyed it all.
Next, we visited the 11th century Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, which was originally built in the 4th century, is the second largest church in Georgia and right in the middle of town. We took a quick walk inside but didn’t stay long as we still had a couple more places to visit that day.
The tombstones were beautifully engraved in Georgian writing. Their writing looks so foreign to me.
Some were also engraved in Russian, which is the second language of Georgia, dating back to it’s long-standing soviet occupancy.
Next, we got in the car and drove another hour or so to Uplistsikhe, a small rock-town that means ‘the lord’s fortress,’ which was about 20 minutes outside Gori. The town is on the bank of the Mtkvari River and has structures dating from the Iron to Late Middle Ages. The earliest traces of humans dates back to 2nd century BC, and it is considered one of the oldest urban settlements in Georgia. It was a fascinating place to visit, and a great place for the kids to get out energy for a couple of hours. The photos for this section uploaded backwards, so this is starting from the end when we hiked down by the river.
Enjoying the view from up top.
There were so many caves and nooks and crannies to explore at this place!
The hike up to the top
Approaching the rock city from the road. We turned off the main road and drove several miles down a rock road before reaching Uplistsikhe. This is what a lot of the country where we drove through looked like - green, rural farm land.
Our next and final stop on the trip was to the town of Gori, the fifth most populated city in Georgia, and the birthplace of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and the soviet ballistic missile designer Alesksandr Nadiradze. We visited the Stalin Museum in the city center, which was dedicated to the life of Stalin in 1957. With the downfall of the Soviet Union, the museum was closed in 1989, then sometime after re-opened as a tourist attraction. The museum and most of the city has Soviet era characteristics, and it looked very different than other places we visited. It was a rather large museum.
At the entrance of the museum, you are greeted with a larger than life statue of Jospeh Stalin.
The museum was separated into several rooms, each depicting a different time of Stalin’s life. Almost everything was written in Russian, so we understood very little, but as they say, pictures can tell a thousand words. On the upper level, there was some English captions talking about Georgia’s long history under soviet rule and their bouts of independence. It was a fascinating place to visit.
Outside the museum there was a large garden with more statues of Stalin and the home that he lived in as a child in Gori.
The museum also had Stalin’s personal train car, the green Pullman carriage, which was armour plated and weighs 83 tons. It was used by Stalin from 1941 onwards as he traveled throughout the Soviet Union. Th car was recovered from the railway yard in Russia in 1985 and brought to Gori.
We even got to go inside!
On the way out of town, we stopped by a store to buy some souvenirs. Gori was a bizarre, but very interesting city to visit!
It was a very full and fun day getting to see more of Georgia. Next stop after Georgia was Greece! But before that, we have some special people to celebrate…stay tuned :)
