Visiting Tbilisi deserves a long weekend at least and i cannot begin to do it justice here!!! So, my advice is to consider it a candidate for a City Break weekend. You’ll have a great time… The bad news is there are no direct flights as the mo’…. so at least one stop and it’s pretty expensive at £400 Return. Accommodation not so expensive – you can find something decent for around £150 for three nights, cheaper available if you hunt around a bit….
We started our tour of Tbilisi by re-visiting Metekhi Church: full name – Virgin Mary Assumption Church of Metekhi. It’s a Georgian Orthodox Christian Church, built between 1278 and 1289.
The church has had a very chequered history, being used to store gunpowder at one stage, as a place where prisoners were executed and it spent many years as a Yourth Theatre. Finally, the church was returned to worship in 1988.
Here are some shots taken of the interior of Metekhi Church. The bells of churches in both Armenia and Georgia are usually found in a separate Bell Tower or at least outside the church. The final pic shows the bells of Metekhi Church.
From the front of Metekhi Church there is a virtually 360 degree vista all around Tbilisi, including this view of the Narikala Fortress.
I’ll tell you a little more about that later, we used the Aerial Tramway to get up to it – in fact the Fortress almost certainly predates the creation of Tbilisi itself!
The enormous white statue you can see off to the right is called ‘Mother of Georgia’. It was erected during the Soviet era in 1958 to commemorate the 1500 year anniversary of the founding of Tbilisi.
Here is a closer pic of the ‘Mother of Georgia’ statue, taken from the Aerial Tramway, hence the reflections – sorry!
Also known as the Kartlis Deda it was built during what Georgians call ‘The Soviet Times’ in 1958 and is an image of a woman in Georgian national dress and made of aluminium.
It certainly looks a bit Soviet…..
Again, from the front of Metekhi Church you get a great view of Tbilisi Old Town on the left bank of the Mtkvari river. Lots of different architectural styles, but as we shall see later a strong Ottoman influence.
Another pic for you of Tour Leader Dario doing his ‘Lovely Assistant’ role: this time for our thespian Georgian Tour Guide Alex. Alex is explaining to us the layout of the city and which bits we are going to see…..
As we walked down from the Metekhi Church to Rike Park to take the Aerial Tramway up to Narikala Fortress we came across this sculpture called ‘Tree of Life’ by David Monavarlisashvili.
The tree is richly decorated with fairy tail houses, birds, insects, leaves and acorns. I’m told the idea was to translate the metaphysics of the old city, personify the history of Tbilisi and the whole of Georgia……
As we will see shortly the folks of Tbilisi are big on unusual sculptures…..!
Here is the best i could do of a vid showing our ride on the Aerial Tramway up to Narikala Fortress. The quality is poor because it’s 360 degree glass and it’s impossible to avoid reflections……
Opinions vary about when the Narikala Fortress was built but late 5th century AD early 6th century looks favourite, almost certainly before Tbilisi was created as a city. As you might expect the views from up there are stunning: here are just a few…..
Starting on the top left, you can see the city of Tbilisi with the snowy Russian Caucasus Mountains away in the far distance. We are due to head off in that direction tomorrow! Second pic shows some Soviet era apartments right in the centre of Tbilisi, not adding a lot of value from the aesthetic point of view, but still an important part of the history of Georgia. Rike Park comes next with the Freedom Bridge and the Hot Air Balloon, then a view of the river, with one of the many little tour boats, followed by another shot of the Metekhi Church. Lastly we go up river a little where you can see more clearly the gorge created by the river.
Here’s a vid that pulls the whole thing together for you…..
Here are some pics of the Fortress itself:
We ambled down towards the Old Town from the Fortress. For me one of the most striking images of Tbilisi was that in addition to the seemingly innumerable Georgian Orthodox Churches, there are also Mosques and a Synagogue…..
The first batch of pictures are of the Jumah Mosque which – like many mosques – looks fairly modest from the outside, but once inside you can see it has some glorious Islamic features. The final pic is of the Tbilisi Great Synagogue: we could not get in, i’m afraid, so no internal pics for you…..
One of the most enjoyable features of Tbilisi Old Town is the Ottoman influence on the architecture: here are some examples for you…..
Here are a few more pics for you to demonstrate the variety of images we saw in the Old Town of Tbilisi…
The first is an excellent sculpture of an eagle with a snake it has captured… you can then see a pic of a footbridge adorned with locks – it’s an image you see all around the world these days: does anybody know where it started?? The next two pics are of the Meidan Bazaar which actually goes under the river – it is claimed to have been an important element of the Silk Road in it’s time. You can then see one of the city’s old trams – no longer in service – which has been converted into a take away cafe and another charming sculpture of a fella waiting for the tram!!!
I promised you some more pics of Tbilisi’s often enigmatic sculptures: here they are:
Our penultimate visit of the day was to the Sioni Cathedral of the Dormition which like many Georgian churches takes its name after traditional places in the Holy Land, in this case Mount Zion in Jerusalem. The church was initially built in the 6th and 7th centuries, but destroyed more than once in the following centuries. The current version dates from the 13th century with changes made in th 17th to 19th centuries. Here are the pics:
Even for a non-believer like me, it’s a glorius and moving place to visit.
At the end of a long and exhilerating day, we did had one more visit to make: The Georgian National Museum. Museums are tricky for a blog like this, in the sense that each item has a long description and you won’t thank me for putting up lots and lots of pics, each one with its own story!
So, here is a selection of what we saw:
These artifacts are mainly made of gold and come from archilogical digs of the many tombs found in Georgia. Most of these come from many centuries BC.
I’ll finish today’s longish blog with some more lighthearted images for you:
I’ve been a bit disappointed that a few of the restaurants we’ve eaten at do not sell Georgian made beer: the selection can come down to Heineken or Corona: this piece of street art i discovered outside a bar selling only Georgian made beers: Love it!!!
We did not see a great deal of this around Tbilisi or Georgia more generally, certainly not to the extent we see public statements of support for Ukraine in the UK.
I feel Georgians have an ambivalent attitude towards Russia: it shares a long border with them and has suffered from persistent bullying and fought at least one war against Russia recently with very little support from the West.
But on the other hand, they were part of the USSR for decades, many Georgians speak Russian [but don’t use it much, i hear…] and up to now Russia has been regarded as so huge and powerful that there is little point making them cross.
Hopefully what is going on in Ukraine just now will help to water down that fear a little……
This VERY odd building in the Old Town caught my eye…. it is adorned with lots and lots of interesting decorated tiles: you can just about see them one quarter of the way from the bottom.
Phew!!! I did warn you about much there is to see in Tbilisi and i don’t feel i have really scratched the surface for you.
Still, well done if you have managed to get this far!!!
Tomorrow we drive from Tbilisi to Kazbegi, way up in the High Caucasus Mountains about 10 miles from the Russian Border…..
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