Ninotsminda Cathedral, Sagarejo - as our pilgrimage draws to an end

Ninotsminda

Someone sitting behind me on the coach groans - oh no not another church today! We are on the last full day of our pilgrimage to Holy Caucasian Georgia and we have just had a fantastic trip to the David Garedzha monastery complex in the desert close to the Azerbaijan border. It's fair to say we are all exhausted. It has been very hot and those of us who took the strenuous climb up to the higher Udabno (desert) monastery are truly whacked! We have seen amazing frescoes and a glimpse into the lives of the many monks who once lived and worshiped in this incredible setting. We have marveled at the dedication of the few monks who still occupy the Davitis Lavra monastery, founded by St David, one of the Holy Syrian Fathers, in the 6th century.

poppies in pretty gardens at Ninotsminda

We fondly believe that we are now heading back to Tbilisi and our final night before heading for home tomorrow. So imagine our dismay to be told that there is another sight on the itinerary for today before we can have that welcome shower and drink at the hotel!
I guess it is the relative familiarity of a return journey that always makes it feel shorter than the outward trip. It therefore seems but a short time before we arrive back in Sagarejo, and somewhat rested after the coach journey, we do somehow find the energy and enthusiasm to explore Ninotsminda Cathedral, (not to be confused with the Bodbe convent also sometimes known as Ninotsminda near Signaghi).

within the chapel at Ninotsminda

This is now ruined as a result of earthquakes in 1824 and 1848, but it is very impressive for all that. It was built in AD 575 but there was a church used here for Christian worship from the 5th century. It is an interesting building because it is built in the cruciform style, predating the Jvari Church in Mtskheta which we visited earlier in our week.

There are the remains in the eastern apse of a fresco of the Virgin and Child, vandalized with bullet holes by bandits in the 18th and 19th century. The defensive walls were built around the cathedral in the 16th and 17th centuries and are well preserved.
There is further detailed information online at eurasia travel for example.

Mid 16th century Bell Tower Ninotsminda

Just 3 or 4 nuns now live here, and they are the friendliest nuns we have met on the whole pilgrimage! They maintain beautiful gardens which enhance the ruin, and we are told that it is possible to take a retreat here, at the nuns' discretion. A small chapel is built into the walls and there is a service in progress as we arrive. The chapel is quite busy, and even very young children stand quietly with their parents, aunts, friends; the girls wearing neat little headscarves like the adult women. There is an equally friendly monk welcoming everyone who enters, and the whole atmosphere is relaxed and peaceful (As I stand their alongside these families I wonder to myself why in the UK do we think we need special "all-age" services which often fail to please either the young or the old?)
Many of us take advantage of this opportunity for some Orthodox liturgy and spirituality, standing quietly and discretely at the back, and we soon find we have been given far too little time there before we have to hurry back to the coach for the final stretch of the journey back to Tbilisi. We agree that we are so glad with hindsight that we paused for a while here.

the Ministry of Internal Affairs building

posters in Tbilisi for 15 June local elections

It is now clouded over and considerably cooler - and as we journey on towards Tbilisi the sun becomes murky in the sky and the atmosphere becomes sultry and humid. It feels like a storm may be brewing. The main road here is attractively undulating and scenic, with smallholdings dotted along the route. We cross the river Iori again (further back we saw people paddling in this same river). There are small calves tethered in the fields - presumably destined for the veal market. At least their short life is a happy one, grazing the lush pastures. Further over in the middle distance I had already spied long low sheds and feared that these may be for intensive pig farming, as pork is very much on the Georgian menu and I had seen no pigs at all outside in the fields during the whole week. Several little streams flow down through these meadows from the mountain range to our north, and beautiful yellow broom once more covers the roadside slope. But still, sadly, there is always that unsightly litter. Soon we enter Tbilisi, past the all-glass building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We are told that normally at this time of day, between 6 and 7pm, there would be bad traffic jams, but today, Saturday, many families go out of town or stay at home for rest and relaxation. It is election day tomorrow, June 15th, in Tbilisi, and there are posters everywhere!

the Virgin and Child Fresco in the apse
Ninotsminda

We all enjoy a group supper at a local restaurant before returning to the hotel and our final packing! This for many of us has been the highlight day of the pilgrimage, but our tour is not quite at an end. Tomorrow we will celebrate a final Eucharist all together in the hotel…

Our journey to the David Gareji (Garedzha) monastery complex

the transfer between minibus and coach
at Hotel Royal Batoni

crossing the river Iori south of Sagarejo

We wake up to a wonderfully sunny morning and enjoy breakfast on the terrace - looking down on the lake, now slowly filling up again! I find the food choices better at breakfast than for supper - being a wheat intolerant vegetarian can be tricky sometimes (!) - and so I make the most of the breakfast spread, refuelling for the long day ahead of us with salad, eggs and the fabulous Georgian Sulguni cheese. Because today we are off to the very isolated David Garedzha Monastery complex, founded by another of the Syrian Fathers, St David, and his disciple Lukian. It is all carved out of the sandstone in a stark semi-desert landscape close to the border with Azerbaijan and it will be hot!
This is one of the holiest Christian places of pilgrimage in Georgia. There is stone here transported from Jerusalem in the 6th Century, and three visits here by Christian Georgian pilgrims is said to be equivalent to one pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
This hotel we are bidding farewell to today, the Kvareli Royal Batoni Hotel, was only reopened a year ago, in July 2013, at the site of an old castle. It is truly an amazing place, with wonderful views, superb rooms, horizon swimming pool, and pleasant ambiance inside. It was a great shame for us that the lake was temporarily empty for our short stay. The photos on the hotel website do it full justice and I will certainly want to stay there again when I next visit Georgia.

typical concrete irrigation channel

a salt lake in the desert

typical large herd of cows in the desert

We have Morning Prayer on the bus as usual - today, 31st May, commemorates the visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, and we hear the reading of the story from the Holy Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 1 vv. 39-56, including the wonderful Magnificat, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit exults in God my saviour…" I simply love singing this at choral evensong. In some ways this is a social activism song, imagining a social transformation, bringing an end to poverty and hunger and the huge injustices of the world, as relevant now as then. Mary sings of God filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich empty away, of pulling down princes from their thrones and exalting the lowly. But this song is not Mary's alone. About one thousand years previously, Samuel's mother Hannah prayed a very similar song, as given in the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament, Chapter 2 vv. 1-10.
Prayers over, we settle back for the long two and a half hour journey, due to arrive about midday, the hottest part! We are driving south towards Azerbaijan, and its neighbor Armenia to the West. The Georgian Military Highway, which we traveled on the other day, is a vital trade route between Armenia and Russia to the North of Georgia. We now climb up into the Gombori mountain range, entering a thickly wooded region and through this onto a high and extremely fertile plateau, where wheat and maize is ripening and plenty of water melons and other cucurbits are being grown and harvested. There is a solitary man in a huge field laboriously watering his crop of what looks like cucumbers, with buckets of water he has brought here in his large white truck. There are two ladies hoeing between the rows by hand. A car overtakes us with its roof rack loaded high with crates of bright red tomatoes, clearly heading for a market somewhere. Back in the plain to the south of the mountain range, and just before we turn off the main road at Sagarejo, there is a comfort stop at a petrol station, with untypically luxurious loos! Here we also have the opportunity to stock up on essential water, and to buy a ice cream.

Soon we're on to an altogether different kind of road. It's a single width track really, the surface of which steadily deteriorates as we drive ever further into the desert towards David Gareji. To start with all is green, with the now familiar crops of grapes, sweet corn, barley, green beans and so on. But it is getting ever hotter and drier. We cross the River Iori as it meanders its way through the landscape. Horses and cows struggle to find shade under high pylons at an electricity sub station. A large herd of goats has better luck, huddled close together among a thicket of trees and shrubs. There are isolated homesteads in the distance and the occasional lone man keeping watch over one of the animal herds, or leading them to a water reservoir for a drink. Sometimes these keepers are on horseback. Some herds know when to come in for milking and need minimal tending during the day. There is a large salt lake, where the salt is collected for the cows; an essential part of their diet. Levan tell us that the trees here were felled in huge quantities for industrial purposes and that is why there is now this desert. The main source of income in this desert is cheese and milk which is sold in Sagarejo. There is minimal public transport here and life must be tough. A minibus goes to the town in the morning, returning at the end of the day. A lone man, elderly and weather-beaten, is walking along the road seemingly miles from anywhere, shovel on his back. I guess he is filling in some of the potholes on this ever deteriorating track….we are nearly there...

the track across the desert

for the highlight experience of our pilgrimage...with just so many fabulous photos of the day I shall have trouble choosing which ones to show here...

scenery close to the monasteries

first views of the monastery complex - promise of wonders to come

Pilgrims on a journey to Georgia: the Alaverdi Cathedral and Nekresi monastery

the 18th century defensive walls at Alaverdi

the gatehouse to Alaverdi - note dress code instructions

Alaverdi cathedral 

We soon have to be on our way again, to another Christian place of worship founded by one of the Syrian Fathers, this time by St Joseph, who is commemorated on 28th September each year. This Alaverdi Cathedral of St George is wonderful! Again there are no photos allowed inside, but the remnants of the frescoes, which date from the 11th, 12th, 13th and 15th centuries, are beautiful. They have survived earthquake, attack by the Mongols, and whitewashing by the Russians in the 19th century, and have been gradually uncovered and restored since the 1960s.
The guidebook tells me that there is the carving of a hand in the flagstones to the left of the entrance inside. But I cannot find it and can find no one to find it for me! The legend is that a local prince was captured and killed by the Turks, asking that his hand be first cut off so that it could be returned to Alaverdi Cathedral and buried in the holy ground there.

sad about the litter - everywhere!

The monks here make and sell their own wine but there are lots of pilgrims willing to part with their cash and there is no wine left in the shop! Neither were there apparently any English guide books to be found - a missed opportunity for them to make some money out of us. There is a pilgrimage and folk festival here every year in the first two weeks of September.

the typical Georgian lunch spread

Back on the coach Levan now explains the Georgian coat of arms - this was designed afresh in 2004 - proclaiming that "strength is in unity" - recalling the story of the sticks in a bundle; It is impossible to break the bundle but any one of the single sticks will easily snap. Above this motto are two rampant lions supporting St George on his horse, his spear piercing the dragon sprawling below him. He also shows us a picture of the new Georgian flag. This is reminiscent of the Jerusalem cross, and the four crosses in the four quarters signify the four evangelists. The previous flag, with a black and white rectangle in the top left hand corner, on a brown background, was considered to give the wrong message for the new independent country. Black signifies dark, evil, predominant over the white which stands for peace….

the plane tree

Now it is time for lunch - as ever very good - at the Café Marleta Telavi  but there is no milk for tea or coffee and there is one toilet for us all - so we are advised to stagger our visit through the meal. The light bulb in the toilet is also missing, so we are supplied with a candle! But the facilities are modern, clean and tidy with paper and running water - sheer luxury!


Well refreshed and watered, we are now bound for the Nekresi monastery complex, but first, about 10 miles further down the road after lunch, we stop in the center of Telavi to become tourists for a short while and to take a short stroll to a massive 900 year old tree with a girth of nearly 12 1/2 meters. That's big! Wiki says it is a sycamore. I rather think it is a plane tree. The direction sign agrees with me!

sign at the bottom of steps to Gremi Citadel

Back on the coach and a 30 minutes drive further on we stop at the Gremi Citadel and Church of the Archangels high on a hill to our left. Again this is just to stretch our legs and to buy ice creams! There is no time to climb the many steps and explore further.
I read afterwards that there is indeed something of interest for us here… is this icon at the foot of the steps to the castle a photo of the one which according to a trip adviser review was used as an operating table when the church was used as a hospital during the soviet occupation?

panoramic view from the Nekresi monastery complex

is that clear?!?

litter at Nekresi

Our last stop for this very full day is at the Nekresi Monastery complex, at the end of a very steep and long brick road up from the car park (with an appalling litter problem). Even the bus carrying us up there seems to be struggling, especially around the hairpin bends, of which there are quite a few. There is only one bus which shuttles back and forth, and this only carries 18 - 20 at a time, all made much worse because the schools are now on holiday and many students are also jostling for a seat. So our group is split into two, and somehow we all manage to get to the top. And we are rewarded by the most stunning of views, and one of the oldest churches in Georgia - a late 4th century little basilica. There are inscriptions here claimed to date from the 1st to the 3rd centuries, making them the earliest examples of the Georgian alphabet. (Also today we saw one of tallest Georgian churches, the Alaverdi cathedral - as I said at the start, Georgia is a country of superlatives!).

Nekresi

I buy a couple of icons, for which the monk double charges me. He grudgingly acknowledges this and refunds the difference - I don't begrudge the money to the monastery - but I am upset when they try to extract it from tourists in this way! apparently pigs are still sacrificed here - to remember when the Persian army was defeated by rolling pigs' heads down the hill at them.

This place was the base of another of the Syrian Fathers, Abibos, in the 6th century. He was martyred by the Persians after he quenched a Zoroastrian sacred fire by pouring water on it.

View at Nekresi

Saturday is going to be our last full day, to be spent at another monastery founded by the Syrian Fathers, this time the David Garedzha Monastery complex in the desert very close to the border with Azerbaijan. I'm very excited about that. 
There is a large party in the evening in the hotel which lasts well into the night - with band and dancing and definitely better food than we had (!) - but with typical Georgian hospitality we were invited to join in the fun and quite a few of our party did just that. I'm afraid that after our night prayer as a group I was happy to go to bed, and catch up on sleep; boring I know but I guessed I would need maximum resources of energy to get the most out of the day to follow and how right I was!

the little basilica at Nekresi

The astute reader will notice that this is not the first time I have mentioned litter! Dear lovely Georgia, please may I respectfully suggest that you try to clean up your beautiful countryside and the wonderful historic sites - the litter bins seem to be generally provided but there is the feeling that many see no harm in throwing litter down and there appears to be no attempt to clean this up at your historic monuments. There are all sorts of issues here, not least being the long term pollution from litter - of the soil, the water sources and ultimately the sea, with pollutants entering the food chain at all stages of this journey. Perhaps education must start in the schools with young people.

shafts of sunlight at Nekresi

Pilgrims on a journey: The Shuamta and Ikhalto monasteries in Georgia

Akhali Shuamta from the approach
note the amazing wild flower meadow

We are on a pilgrimage with Southwark Diocese in lovely Caucasian Georgia, and our time here is sadly drawing to an end. But there is still plenty to see and experience before we pack our suit case for the last time and wend our way home!
Our target for today is the churches and monasteries of the Kakheti region, famous for its vineyards. We have the usual minibus shuttle service to take us down from the hotel to our coach by the side of the lake (now starting to fill up again, albeit slowly!), and we make our way back through Telavi to our first stop, an hour's drive away, at the new Shuamto monastery, Akhali Shuamta, high in the Gombori mountain range.

Akhali Shuamta

This 16th century cruciform brick church has beautiful frescoes dating back to the same century, but we are not allowed to take photos inside the church and we are watched by a grumpy nun throughout. Time therefore to simply stand and absorb the spirituality of the place, feel the vibes of centuries of prayer absorbed into the fabric of the place, and ponder on the state of the world today. Time to enjoy silence!
The monastery is still active, and the guidebooks did warn us that the nuns here were unfriendly! The Russians have whitened some of the frescoes, and some have been cleaned.

The Church of the Holy Spirit Ikhalto

The Ikhalto monastery complex

The church was founded by King Levan of Kakheti, his Queen Tinatin and their son Alexander. We are told of a legend that travelers arrived here and left an icon in the bushes. The next day this could not be removed and so they promised God to build a church here. I could not find this version in my later research, but another legend, found on the internet, is that Queen Tinatin constructed the monastery, because as a little girl she had a dream that she was to build an orthodox temple. It was only when she married the prince Levan and traveled across Georgia with him that she recognized the site where she must fulfill the dream. Later she became a nun there and was buried in the church. Her tomb was found in 1899 and she is remembered on September 3rd.

Icon of King David the builder
Ikhalto

whose tomb is this in the Church of the
Holy Spirit Ikhalto?

Sadly we have no time to go just a few miles further up the hill to see the Old (Dzveli) Shuamto monastery set in splendid isolation in a hornbeam wood. There are three churches here, the oldest from the 6th century with its original alabaster iconostasis. Another church is modeled on the Jvari church we saw earlier in our travels, with an octagonal dome, dating from the 7th century. The third church is a smaller 17th century version of the 7th century church! There is said to be a tunnel linking Old Shuamto with the Ikhalto monastery, our next stop, but we travel there more conventionally and comfortably in our coach!

At Ikhalto monastery

Like  Shuamto, the Ikhalto monastery was an education center or academy, and was founded in the late 6th Century by St Zenon, one of the Syrian Fathers who established Christianity in Georgia.It began as a local place of learning but became one of the most significant cultural-scholastic centers of Georgia, (the other being at Gelati), when King David the builder further developed the academy in the 12th century. Many subjects were taught there including theology, astronomy, philosophy, as well as practical skills such as pottery and, perhaps not surprisingly, wine-making. Legend says that the famous Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli studied here. The academy was destroyed by the invading Persians in 1616 when it was set on fire.

view of the refectory and other academy ruins Ikhalto

the wine fermenting jars set deep in the ground
Ikhalto

On the drive over to Ikhalto Levan fills us in a little on the present day Georgian education system, quite different I'm sure from what went on in the 6th century academy here. Children go to kindergarten at 2 years old, and then start preparing for main school at the age of 5. Here they go from age 6, for the next 12 years until they leave, to work or to go university. The national exam is in 9 subjects, after which the students may take the university entrance exams, with a possibility of scholarships to get 30 - 100% of the 1000 Euros annual fee paid. There is also a system of teaching minorities alongside Georgians; they learn each others' languages and study together in pairs, offering great potential for understanding and integration. What a brilliant idea!

6th century church of the Trinity

At Ikhalto there is plenty to see and some great photo opportunities - again so easy to forget we are pilgrims not tourists. To our shame some of us go scrambling over the ruins in exploration, before we have heard about what we have come to see. We see the ruins of the old academy, the buried wine clay jars typical of the region, the three churches. The main church of the Holy Spirit or Khvtaeba was built in the 8th - 9th century on the site of an earlier one where St Zenon is said to have been buried.

Levan tells us that 90% of Georgians are Christians and many go to church often, including the young people - although girls tend to be more pious than the boys. The liturgy can be 5 - 6 hours long for special days, and traditionally females stand to the left, males to the right, although nowadays there is a greater tendency to mix. I had not noticed this before really, but on the iconostasis the Virgin Mary is always the icon immediately to the left of the entrance to the inner sanctuary, the icon to the right is of Jesus.



This site was restored quite recently and there are posters with some comprehensive information about the restoration process at the entrance to the site.

Holy Georgia - in the steps of St Nino and the Syrian Fathers - the road to Kutaisi

We are pilgrims on a journey; in Caucasian Georgia, in the steps of St Nino and the Syrian Fathers. We have explored the Dzhvari or Jvari (cross) church in its proud and very prominent position high above the town of the sacred city of Mtskheta, and then visited the cathedral in the town, related in my last post here.
But now we have to travel on.
Back in the coach we travel westwards, passing close to South Ossetia. Advice on safety and security for travelers from the UK foreign office advises us that: "along the M27 road (also known as the M1), particularly where it runs very close to South Ossetia (between the Stepantsminda/Gudauri turnoff and Gori, and between Gori and Khashuri)... There is a risk of criminal activity in these areas." This is our route!  The website further advises that: "The British government does not recognise the unilateral declarations of independence made by the de facto authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There is no UK diplomatic representation available in either location." We have every confidence in McCabe's meticulous attention to such details, and also in our excellent Georgian guide and driver.

A refugee camp on road to Kutaisi

on the road to Kutaisi

Our guide tells us that 20% of Georgian territory is still occupied by Russia today, 400,000 people have been turned out of their houses to live in refugee camps in Georgia or to leave the country. We drive past one such camp where some of these Internally Displaced People, or IDPs as they are known, now live. We are told that this camp was partly funded by the European Union and the World Bank. Since its independence, Georgia did suffer civil conflict, fueled, our guide tells us, by Russia who would like the world to think Georgia is unstable. But whilst Georgia did have a corrupt government and economic problems in its early days of independence, for the last ten years or so it is making positive steps forward and life is generally good. There is plenty of new building going on, and the roads are being substantially improved. Georgia wants only to build peace and stability for its people, a desire shared by most of us. The country is expanding its export market around the world, especially for its wine for which it is justly well known, and in 2011 the new Georgian government even renegotiated its exports to Russia again, a huge and very important market for them. As she tells us this, we pass a tourist sign to the "Wine Route", the first of many such signs we will see later in our pilgrimage.

on the road to Kutaisi

There is a family of stray dogs basking on the bonnet of an abandoned car by the wayside; a bitch and her pups, clearly set up home there. There are too many emaciated stray dogs around - so sad.
The wild flowers in the meadows as we drive along are stunning in their diversity and colors. Poppies give us flashes of bright red brilliance, there are fields of barley and wheat, and there are plenty of smallholdings and small orchards in and around the villages we pass through. Much accommodation here seems very old and run down, in stark contrast to the very modern IDP settlements. Rusty corrugated iron roofs cover many of the older buildings, again in contrast to the many shiny new satellite discs seen as we drive further to the west.

typical Georgian food very Veggie friendly!

It is lunch time, and we stop at Venecia Ristorante, before reaching Gori. This restaurant has been built around an artificial lake and canal with arched bridges and plenty of outside terraces. We discover later that this is a very popular style of restaurant in Georgia. A long table is set out ready for us, groaning with enticing plates of food and baskets of the flat bread for which the region is known. We are seated on one of the covered balconies overlooking the lake, which is full of trout. I'm finding the Georgian food very veggie friendly on the whole, helped by the way they keep bringing various dishes, both meat and salad based and there are no defined courses as such, which we are all used to. So at first it seems a little strange, but I like it. I only miss having a sweet "pudding" to finish the meal, that's all. And my wheat free diet, recently imposed for medical reasons, is proving to be a challenge, with so much delicious looking fresh bread always generously provided. But my wheat abstinence is certainly helping me, so perseverance in this respect is definitely worth while.

dough for the flat bread

colorful roadside market stalls on
road to Kutaisi

After this meal we go around the back of the restaurant where the coach is parked and watch an elderly lady making this flat bread, sticking the shaped dough with apparent ease around the sides of a stone pit at the bottom of which are red hot embers; a skill no doubt learnt over decades and passed on through generations. Also here a man is catching and killing some of the free range chickens for supper tonight. I give this a miss! At least the birds have had a happy life scratching around the coppice behind the restaurant and their end comes mercifully quickly.
It is a three hour drive after lunch to Kutaisi and our hotel for the next two nights so we settle down to read, sleep, watch films on our personal tablets etc. or listen to music. I cannot do any of these things; I watch out of the window continually, anxious not to miss any detail of the changing landscape of this lovely countryside. There is so much of interest to see along the roadside;

There is a craftsman making wooden ladders. Then there are the many colorful street market, the stalls stacked high with local fruits. Each market comprises a collection of many small stalls, but many of these appear to be very run down, even abandoned. I've mentioned the cows before, grazing everywhere, with no boundaries, usually under the watchful eye of one or two men, who we later learn are paid per cow per day for this watchful duty. Some keepers are on horseback - one we saw was galloping bareback somewhat dangerously I thought alongside the fast moving traffic!
There are many small fields of newly planted "greens." Then I see a motorbike pulling a farm trailer! A large and rare road sign in English at the road works along the way urges the traffic to "Slow Down." They are widening this very main and busy route and improving its surface at the same time.
Always there is litter, especially at junctions and along the main roads. Curiously the towns themselves are nearly always relatively clear of litter. Lovely Georgia, please stop desecrating your beautiful countryside in this way. Sadly, I fear the UK is heading in the same direction unless we change the filthy habit of "litter bugging" soon.

Kutaisi street scene

We are warned to expect a higher humidity in Kutaisi than in Tblisi. We are driving towards higher mountains on our left, to the South, and into rain - we are only one hour into our drive and can see the clouds coming down the mountain sides towards us. I even think I see snow on a distant peak, glinting in the sunshine before the rain clouds blot out the view. And do they just! It is raining really hard now, the view ahead almost obliterated except when vivid lightning flashes momentarily open it up again, and thunder roars around. It looks to be set in for the day.

poppies!

Water pours down roadside gullies presumably to a collecting reservoir somewhere? Meanwhile we are noticeably climbing. My ears start popping. There is evidence of quite a few rocky landslides which have been cleared away from the road. Then we begin our descent. We drive down verdantly green and steep wooded gorges and we can see a river, sometimes alongside the road, then far below us, always swollen and fast flowing with the rain. There are regular "wrecking cul de sacs" - the signs again in English. Presumably these are the same as our "escape routes" (what do Americans call them?) for lorries with failing brakes on steep hills and the assumption is that Georgian lorry drivers don't need them? I understood that English is not widely spoken here outside Tbilisi so why the English signs?

Home to the story of the Golden Fleece, Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest town, with a population of 200,000. It is also the oldest, with evidence of settlements going back to perhaps the 17th century BC. It was certainly established as a Greek colony by the 7th century BC.
Here we will be visiting two monasteries and the wonderful Bagrat Cathedral, as well as soaking up the atmosphere of the Georgian Independence celebrations which happily coincide with our visit....to be continued...