Morning, folks!!! It’s about 8:00am Saturday here in Kazbegi, Georgia and i know this pic is out of sync with the rest of the blog, but the view from my hotel balcony is so wonderful, gotta share it with you. Then i’ll get back to the business of finishing the blog for Day 4…..

That’s Mt. Kazbek,15,851 feet high shining in the early morning sun. To the left on the skyline is the 14th century Gergeti Trinity church at just 7,119 feet which we hiked up to yesterday afternoon when we arrived in Kazbegi.

That’s all a story for another day…..

Here are your final two pics of the Armenian countryside as we made our way to the border with Georgia on Wednesday afternoon. As you can see the countryside is mountainous with narrow valleys and scary roads, with racing mountain rivers on which you can risk your neck river rafting if that’s your thing….

The Border Crossing

Some of the border crossings on the Silk Road a few years ago were nightmarerish: huge queues and several hours of passport, visa and luggage checks, so i was a little nervous about this one.

Nothing to it! We had to get out of the bus on the Armenian side of the border to have our passports checked and stamped. In the meantime the driver took the bus through with our luggage, no inspection! We then got back on the bus to be driven through No Mans’ Land to the Georgian border: off the bus again, this time with our luggage which we took through customs and immigration. However, apart from a slight delay waiting for our passports to be stamped it was a doddle!

We said goodbye to the lovely Lowra, our Armenian guide, hello to our new Georgian guide, got onto the Georgian bus and went on our way…..

Immediate impressions of this part Georgia compared with Armenia?

The country looks less mountainous and more prosperous: despite the appalling problems the country went through following the collapse of the USSR, constant bullying by Russia – including more than one invasion – and some grave economic challenges – Georgia is well on the way to reinventing itself. The country has a long and proud history of maintaining its own identity despite great powers suppressing that independence for decades at a time.

As we drove through the countryside towards the capital Tbilisi we saw large scale farming and – interestingly – although there are still thousands of the Soviet era apartment blocks the government does seem to have made some efforts to smarten them up. I don’t recall seeing that in Armenia…. We also saw lots of more modern aparment blocks being erected. Here are some pics for you:

After a long and busy day we ambled off to dinner on the other side of the river Mtkvari from our hotel. As our first introduction to Tbilisi the city was busy and lively. Lots and lots of folks out and about, dozens – probably hundreds – of crowded restaurants and bars. Tbilisi has a reputation these days for nightlife and great food – we certainly saw lots of evidence of that!

The geography of the place is a little reminiscent of Paris – for the Seine read the Mtkvari – but the hills around the city are higher and from the river you can see dozens of historic landmarks and some much more modern ones. The pics:

The equestrian statue is King Vakhtang I Gorgasali was a king of Iberia [not Spain, confusingly] locally known as Kartli (eastern Georgia) in the second half of the 5th and first quarter of the 6th century. He is proudly riding his horse next to Metekhi Chuch on the left bank of the river Mtkvari which we were to visit on Day 5 [Thursday]. You can also see the very posh Biltmore Hotel soaring above the river and the aerial tramway which carried us over the river and up to the Narikala Fortress the following day. Lastly, i was very taken by the small chapel nestling alongside the river just below Metekhi Church.

As we headed back across the river to our hotel on the left bank we got a great view of Tbilisi by night:

If it looks to you like a bit of jumble, that probably does reflect the reality of Tbilisi! The Biltmore Hotel is dominating the skyline, the very stylish Bridge of Peace to the left, the Hot Air Balloon and Aerial Tramway Terminus to the right.

Not all of these modern structures are universally popular we discovered: there is some criticism that they unduly dominate the Old Town of Tbisili – but as tourists with no baggage from the past the mix of ancient and modern seemed to us to work just fine!

I’ll share more of that with you when i can make the time to report on our whole day of sight-seeing in Tbilisi on Day 5. I have been told off for confusing you all with Days and Dates – sorry about that, it’s really just a function of a busy, busy schedule trying to pack the best of three countries into a two week visit! You can always have another look at the page The Detailed Route if i am making you dizzy!!!

Gotta go now, we are off on another long drive across Georgia!!!