Breakfast on the pleasant fifth floor terrace overlooking the capital of Georgia. I could have had soup or spaghetti Bolognese, but settled for cheese, tomato, cucumber, biscuits and a sweet made of grape juice and walnut.
Our morning walking tour of the city included a waterfall by the bathhouses,
two of the thirteen former caravanserai (one with a photo exhibition from war zones)
and a couple of churches in the old town, including the Russian Sioni church covered in icons and frescoes. Lunch at a café specialising in cheese pies, large and rich. After half an hour in the State Museum, the rest of the day was free time. I headed for Prospero’s Books, and bought a city map only slightly better than the free one, and a postcard.
My ambitious afternoon walk took me uphill to Mount Mtatsminda, then along a footpath to the Mother Georgia memorial next to the Botanic Gardens and Narikala Fortress. Here I enjoyed a grape-flavoured soft ice-cream cone before the final descent to Meidan Square. All in well-maintained and surfaced paths, but with a lot of steps. I was now close to the hotel, but bought some apricots and a soft drink before returning. Now tired, and after a bit of rehydration, I lay down and slept, to be woken by a thunderstorm.
emeritablog: life after work 