Day 43 (8 July)

Breakfast in our odd little lodgings doesn't happen until 9 am. That's late for us, so we'd made sure we had some little Georgian biscuits laid by for "first breakfast" (they're like Lebkuchen, but with an apple filling).

Then we set off for the castle. On the way we passed the Sioni Cathedral, but I couldn't go in because I was wearing trousers... I should have known about this. It is in the Lonely Planet, albeit in small print. No shorts for men, no trousers of any description for women (plus they should have a head covering)... This is awkward, because I haven't possessed a skirt since 2013.

I try not to get all riled up about other people's dress codes.

It is up to them, after all, not up to me.

But I couldn't help feeling just a little bit sore that my terribly modest outfit (decent trousers and a long, loose shirt, with a headscarf ready to put on), which has served me well in countless mosques in Southeast Asia, was not deemed respectable enough here. Does God really care that much what his/her daughters wear? Is there no end to the regulation of women's clothing?

OK, I hear my irritation... Om... Peace... Move on...

Anyway, we took the cablecar to the castle (your Metromoney card covers this ride). Up there you get some perspective on the world.






Then we walked along the ridge to the bottom of the funicular. We didn't go up, but the walk was nice (as soon as you're away from the buildings, this part of the world is cedar-scented and full of trilling cicadas). And the bit of Tbilisi you emerge onto seemed very attractive and "normal" -- a nice change from the heavily tourist-oriented streets we'd walked yesterday.



(I do understand the dilemma here. These old houses need lots of maintenance, which I'm sure is hard to fund unless you turn them into businesses, and tourist business may well be the most lucrative. But how you then stop the creep of artificiality I don't know. Bari seemed to have managed the balancing act quite well, Polignano less so.)



Another nice area is the one between the river and Fabrika (a really cool hotel/cafe/workshop complex in a former Soviet sewing factory).









It's also been another good day for food.

Breakfast included the apparently very healthful Georgian yoghurt, matsoni.

For lunch we ordered lobiani, which resembles khachapuri, but is stuffed with beans (and, in our case, ham) instead of cheese.

And in the evening we had a go at churchkhela. This is a delicious nut-and-fruit confection (I really hate the designation "Georgian Snickers", but it seems to be everywhere...). We had something similar in Turkey (cevizli sucuk). Making it is a labour-intensive process.

So there's been lots to like about the day.

On the political front, things are not improving. The Russian flight ban came into effect today. And others have been stirring things up in probably unhelpful ways.

It's always so much easier to heat things up than to cool them down...

Day 44 (9 July)

First up, we walked via Vake Park to the Open-Air Museum of Ethnography. This is a reasonably long way, with a lot of uphill. So once we got to the museum, we decided we would postpone our visit until after we'd had lunch at Racha House, a little further along the road.




Excellent decision. We got to try a different Georgian beer (Natakhtari), and some new Georgian dishes, all really good:

Eggplant and walnut paste (self-explanatory); chikhirtma (chicken soup, with a chunk of chicken at the bottom, and a big squeeze of lemon to give it a bit of pep); and ojakhuri (a sizzling hotplate of pork, potatoes, and onions).

There's no doubt about it: Georgian cuisine is awesome. And not too expensive. This whole extravaganza, accompanied by lots of bread, and served on a breezy deck with wonderful views, cost less than GEL 50.



Thus fed, we were in fine form for the museum, which basically consists of a collection of traditional houses salvaged from different parts of Georgia. A few are furnished, and can be entered.

There's a folk music festival happening up here in the evenings this week, so an added bonus was hearing a group practising some of Georgia's classic polyphonic singing.









A bit further up the road, back past the restaurant and on again some more, is Turtle Lake. This is a small body of water half-way up a hill, with a plethora of cafes offering drinks, plus decks overlooking the lake to enjoy them on.



Getting home was a bit of a mission. Google maps are not that accurate in Georgia, it seems, and the "road" on the map led straight over a cliff on the ground. Some sustained downhill tramping, however, brought us back to the park, where we were able to pick up a bus. (And here's a grateful shout-out to the man who pointed us in the right direction, and kept an eye on us until such times as we knew where we were.)

A very good day... Not crowded in the slightest.