Mickey Whist's Day(s) Off

As my time was short in Georgia, I decided to utilise the efficent transport links and my base in Tbilisi to make a few days trips.  The mashrutka bus station of Didube was a sprawling mess servicing all corners of the country, but finding the right bus was as simple as shouting out your destination and feeling a million hands dragging you in the right direction.

For my first trip I had planned on visiting the city of Gori; birthplace of Soviet Russia's most famous and ruthless father, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli - or Josef Stalin to his friends.  When I arrived though, it became apparent that there wouldn't be much to see after the locals had recently removed his statue and I didn't particularly fancy going to the museum to see how 'great' Uncle Joe was - even if he did butcher a huge number of his fellow countrymen during his reign!

Instead, I jumped on another marshrutka and went to the nearby village of Uplistsikhe.  A short walk away I came across an ancient rock monastery in the same vein as those found in Gorome in Cappadocia.  Spending a few hours exploring the caves and the rocks with their dazzling array of colours was much better than any museum trip.

The next day, I took a marshrutka along the Georgian Military Highway, a stretch of road that meandered northwards towards the Russian border.  Since the conflict between the two countries a few years ago, the border has been closed, so the road actually has a dead end; the mountainous village of Kazbegi.  The trip along the highway, though, was very scenic and was probably worth the journey just to gaze out of the window of the mini-van as mountain, lakes and villages passed by.

Kazbegi is a very small village, but is a very pretty one nonetheless.  The area is great for hikers looking to get away for a few days with it's trails leading up into the surrounding mountains and forests.  I, however, was there for the Tsimada Sameba monastery; a picturesque holy place atop a high hill nearby.  My good fortune with the weather wasn't with me that day, though, as the clouds descended and opportunities for that postcard snapshot were to be thwarted.  The setting was pretty cool anyway.

My last trip out of Tbilisi was to the nearby town of Mtskheta.  The Holy Land of Georgian Christians, Mtskheta, was a 20 minute ride out of the city and I had planned to visit on my last day in the capital as I had a train later that day and I didn't want to miss it.

In the centre of the town is the giant (for its time) cathedral, Svetitskhoveli.  The building is said to have been built upon the final resting place of a local woman who was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ's crucifixation and returned with the robes he died in.  When she died, she was holding his threads and no-one was able to pry them from her fingers, so the locals took it as a sign and built the cathedral.  Quite why nobody thought to ask what she was doing stripping the clothes off a dead man, I have no idea!

Overlooking the town, is the granddaddy of Georgian Christianity; the monastery of Jvari.  This half-ruined building is said to be holiness itself and people make pilgrimages here every year.  However, by this point I was no longer able to appreaciate any more churches and places of worship so I only gave it a cursoray look.

All in all, clambering over the rocks and acting like Indiana Jones in Uplistsikhe and riding along the highway to the mountains were much more fun, especially unwinding with my couchsurfing host and her friend at the end of the day with a White Russian.