Armenia - By train to Yerevan

We had train tickets booked for an overnight sleeper train from Tbilisi to Yerevan in Armenia. We woke up quite early (for us) and spent the day exploring some more if Tbilisi's sights. We started with the rather new looking Russian Orthodox church that's located in the next street down from our hostel. There was a service going on when we arrived but we were still allowed in. The inside of the church was ornate as with most Orthodox churches, with lots of gold encrusted icons and paintings of saints. There was some pretty singing going on but we couldn't see the singers. Not sure if it was a cunningly hidden speaker system or if they were behind some screen to one side. A priest gave us some stale tasting pieces of bread and insisted we ate it. Think that means I've ingested a piece of Christ - gross!

Onion shaped dome of the Russian Orthodox church that seems to be currently under construction just like most of Tbilisi.

Mtskheta - Georgia's old capital

On our third full day in Georgia we decided to head out to Mtskheta, one of the oldest cities in the country and the spiritual heart of Georgia with its ancient churches. It's 20km from Tbilisi and just a short bus ride away, perfect for a day trip. We walked to the main train station in Tbilisi called Voksal and bought our tickets for the overnight train to Yerevan in Armenia for the following day. Then we caught the metro to Didube bus station and found the marshrutka to Mtskheta. Marshrutkas are small minibuses that ply the roads of Georgia (and Armenia) linking cities together and driven by guys who get paid by the number of passengers they pick up, which means they usually wait until they fill up which can be inconvenient. They are usually driven very quickly and are very cheap. We paid 1 lari (about 50p or less) to get to Mtskheta and it took about 30 minutes.

Our first stop in Mtskheta was at the Samtavro church just up from the bus stop. This church was built in the 1130's and now forms part of a nunnery. The nunnery was the site of Georgia's first church. Then we walked to the town centre where we visited Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, a compound surrounded by a large crenelated wall.

Smaller older building in the grounds of the Samtavro church.

Tbilisi Day 2: Narikala Fortress and the Quest for the Botanical Gardens

Feeling rather worse for wear after the previous late night drinking, we planned to have a lazy, easy day of wandering around Tbilisi's Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, they proved unexpectedly elusive.

After our usual Georgian breakfast of khachapuri (cheesy bread) we made caught the subway to Liberty Square and walked down to the dry bridge market, the place to buy all kinds of random things including Soviet memorabilia, old musical instruments, jewelry and stuffed animals. I bought a replacement my Russian hat after the original badge had been tragically lost at a music festival a few years ago.

Jewelry and handmade rugs for sale at Tbilisi's dry bridge market.

Tbilisi Day 1: Churches, chacha and crumbling grandeur

So we spent our first day in Georgia exploring Tbilisi's many churches, eating lots of cheesy bread, (khachapuri) and getting acquainted with the local firewater called "chacha". We started with some khachapuri for breakfast before heading off on foot across the city towards Liberty Square for a free walking tour. 


We noticed several interesting things about Tbilisi just on that first lazy stroll to the centre. One of the first things was that, despite Tbilisi's relatively small size (the population is only about 1 million people), the city seemed very big on art. There was interesting stencilled graffiti everywhere we looked. The other things we noticed were that there seemed to be building works going on all over the place, there were lots of people begging (mainly Romany kids and wizened old Georgians) and there were churches of varying sizes everywhere you looked. 

One of the many pieces of stencilled graffiti we saw all over Tbilisi. 

Arrival in Tbilisi - First impressions of Georgia

We left out hostel in Istanbul on a hot, sticky Friday morning with all our bags and headed for the airport for our flight to Georgia. The flight was a little delayed though we were never told why. Turkish airlines were being as useless as ever. They'd been rude and superior on the way to Istanbul but this time they were incompetent too. On the plane one of the air hostesses kept fiddling around in an overhead compartment and ended up dropping some spare seatbelts on a passengers head! Luckily the pilots weren't as careless and managed to go land us safely at Tbilisi airport in Georgia despite a fair bit of turbulence.


Rowan almost didn't make it into the country. The woman at passport control spent a long time staring suspiciously at his passport photo then back at him. After more than five minutes she got a friend to come and have a look, there was some serious debate then they finally let him pass. Maybe I shouldn't have encouraged him to try and grow that little beard - makes him look like a vagrant!

Would you let this man into YOUR country? I didn't think so!

Whither Georgia?

Whither Georgia indeed! Why are we planning on going to the little known country of Georgia? Well, before I explain, let me decode the stupid title of this post. Whither means "to what end, place or purpose" and "Whither Russia?" was one of the essay titles for my Russian History and Culture degree.


When I told people that we were planning to visit Georgia most people knew very little about the place. Many people asked why go there, most didn't know where it was and some even asked me if I meant the American state of Georgia. So here's why, where and of course "whither".


First off - where. Georgia is a country in the Causasus region (named for the large mountain range) sandwiched between Russia to the north and Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the south. It's a small country, about half the size of the American state that shares it's name and a little smaller than the Republic of Ireland. Despite its diminutive size, Georgia hosts a diverse range of landscapes and climates, form alpine meadows, marshes, swamps and temperate rainforests to snowy mountains, glaciers that never melt and even some semi arid desert like land down near the border with Azerbaijan. Being in the Caucasus, Georgia is a mountainous country and it is these many mountain ranges that give it such diversity.

Georgia is one of the 3 countries, along with Armenia and Azerbaijan, that make up the Caucasus region.

Georgia's capital city is Tbilisi, a city with a little over a million people. Georgia is actually called Sakartvelo by the Georgians and it has its own unique language and beautiful, curly alphabet that looks fantastic but is really hard work to learn. It has been invaded and occupied by several powerful empires over the years including the Persians and the Russians and has a turbulent history to say the least. The country has only been independent since 1991 when it finally managed to break away from the Soviet Union.


The last time it was really on the news across the world was in 2008 when it was invaded by Russia and there was a short war between the two countries. That's all calmed down now but relations with Russia are still frosty and two regions of Georgia have broken away and are basically now under Russian control again, namely Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It is not easy or advisable to visit these two regions from Georgia so we won't be going there. Unexploded ordnance, the threat of kidnapping and banditry and the virtual impossibility of getting visas while in Georgia put paid to that idea. Despite the recent troubles Georgia is a safe country to visit apparently as long as you don't wander off into one of the separatist regions.

Russian tanks surging in to South Ossetia during the war with Georgia in 2008.

So enough geography and history. Why Georgia? Well, I studied English literature and Russian history and culture at university, really useful I know! As part of my course I learned about Russia's ongoing conflicts with the peoples of the Caucasus mountain region which includes parts of Georgia. This is where I first started to get interested in the region. I saw a Russian film called "Prisoner of the Mountains" made in 1996 and based on a 19th century novella Leo Tolstoy. That film was shot in Dagestan, a semi autonomous region in Russia that shares a border with Georgia. The whole film is available on YouTube and is really good so click this link to watch it.

Also, I have visited Russia 3 times with my friend Sarah and every time we ended up going to a Georgian restaurant for food as Russian food can get a bit much after a few days and every time it was awesome. Going to one of those restaurants became the highlight of our trips out there! Georgian food is big and hearty and the best thing is the cheesy bread pies, called khachapuri. It comes in all different shapes and sizes, from round and flat to boat shaped, some filled with just cheese and others with an egg on top. They are delicious and a perfect way to ruin your health and your waistline but for a good cause.

Boat shaped khachapuri filled with melting cheese.

Of course Georgian cuisine consists of more than just cheese filled bread but that's the most important part! Oh, Georgian wine is also very good and apparently wine originated there, probably. My other reasons for wanting to go to Georgia included the incredibly beautiful pictures I'd seen of the countryside dotted with its many ancient churches, the famed freindliness and hospitality of the Georgian people and the traditional music. I love listening to all kinds of music and always try to listen to some of the traditional folk music of whatever country I'm going to visit to get a feel for the place (and for what crazy traditional instruments I might buy for my weird collection!) Georgian traditional music is amazing, especially the singing. Apparently, the earliest polyphonic vocal tradition came from Georgia and polyphonic singing is still widely practiced all over Georgia today.

Georgian traditional folk song called "Shenma survilma damlia" with picures of the country.

Another traditional song with added big beards and mustaches!

So, that's why I wanted to go to Georgia. Cheese, bread, music and mustaches. That should just about do it!

Last Day in Istanbul - Bosphorous Cruise and more mosques

We woke up late again on our last full day in Istanbul. Most people in our dorm room were late to bed as were we so it couldn't be helped. Your schedule is rather dictated by other people when you stay in a dorm room, especially one as cramped as ours. Our room smelt like a monkey house too as two guys who were cycling across Turkey had moved into our dorm the night before and their bags stank! Not surprising given the extreme heat. 

After our usual hostel brekkie we set off for the Eminonu docks to catch a Bosphorous ferry. As you probably already know, Istanbul is famous as it is the only city in the world that is built on two continents, Europe and Asia. The two sides are separated by the Bosphorous Sea. The docks were a bit confusing but after some messing about we decided to get the more expensive 25 lira long circle cruise that would take us way up to some far flung places on the Asian side. There were shorter, cheaper (10 lira) cruises available but we'd just missed one of course. We jumped aboard our big old passenger ferry, grabbed a seat on the outer edge so we could have a good view and settled in for a day of sitting around rather than walking - bliss! We saw lots of jellyfish in the water and cormorants diving for fish. There was plenty of rubbish too unfortunately. Actually, one of the things we noticed about the ferries was how much smoke they poured pout of their chimneys. The smog over the sea was pretty disgusting and hung over Istanbul in a visible pall.

The New Mosque seen from our ferry on the Bosphorous.

Istanbul Day 2 - A bit of Byzantium and a lotta Ottoman

We had another late start on our second full day in Istanbul. Lucky we don't have a tight schedule for our travels or anything! After loading up on bread at our complimentary hostel breakfast we set out for another full on day of sightseeing in the searing 34 degrees celsius heat. 

Our first stop of the day was a visit to the Basilica Cistern or "Yerebatan Sarayı" as it's called  in Turkish which means the "Sunken Palace".The Basilica Cistern is a huge cathedral sized ancient cistern that lies beneath Istanbul. Like the Hagia Sofia, it was built in the 6th century AD during the reign of Justinian of the Byzantine Empire. Of course, being a Byzantine construction, it couldn't be just purely functional and is also an astonishing fat of engineering. For the uninitiated, a cistern, at least one of this scale, is a large receptacle with a waterproof lining for holding and storing liquids, usually water. No, it's not just the thing on top of your toilet! 

The Basilica Cistern gets it's Byzantine name from its location. It was originally built underneath a basilica (church). According to Wikipedia, some old texts claim that 7000 slaves were used to make the cistern. The Basilica was, and still is, absolutely massive covering an area of 9,800 square meters and with a maximum capacity of 80,000 cubic metres - that's a lot of water. The ceiling of the Basilica Cistern was supported by over 300 marble columns, in various different styles. Some were Ionic, some Doric and a few Corinthian, some plain and a few were engraved. Apparently this was because the builders recycled parts from older Roman ruins. 

The Basilica Cistern was cool and echoing and only had a few feet of water lying at the bottom when we were there. The water was filled with strange fat carp-like grey fish.

Istanbul Day 1 - Mostly mosques

We woke up on our fırst day in Istanbul to be greeted by a beautiful, but very hot, sunny day. We had a bıt of a late start but it seems that the day starts quite late here anyway gıven the intense heat. The hostel where we are sdtaying provides us with a free breakfast every morning which is a nice touch and Ali, the cheerful owner, makes sure that everyone can eat ıt by having long serving times - 8am to 12pm! Lucky for us!

After plenty of bread, cheese, boiled egg and honey washed down with some Turkish tea and a chat wıth some of the other guests we set off for our first day of sightseeing. Before we even left the hostel we explored the rooftop area whıch gave us a great vıew of the Hagıa Sofia and the Blue Mosque. 

Rowan playing one of the 3 tunes he knows on my uke on the hostel roof.

The Hagia Sofia as seen from our hostel roof.

From Manchester to Istanbul

On a grey, wet Monday morning in June we left our frıends' flat in Manchester and set off for the airport. For once we'd packed quite well and only had one big backpack each plus a small day pack and, of course, my ukulele. The flight to Istanbul was pretty uneventful apart from the rather superior, imperious attitude of the female staff of Turkish Airlines. The plane meal was better than normal though so it wasn't all bad.

It was pretty late when we landed at Ataturk Airport, about 10pm, and we were in a hurry as we wanted to use the public transport to get to our hostel and it stops running around midnight. Unfortunately, the staff hd a dıfferent plan for us when they "lost" my big backpack. This was a pretty amazıng feat of stupidity as my backpack is a horrendous shade of shocking pink and is further ornamented with a disgusting floral pattern.So, pretty easy to spot ın a crowd and presumably quıte hard to lose. I was told that my bag was probably still in Manchester Airport - not a happy start to our travels.

My "beautiful" pink backpack.

On the road again

It's midnight in Manchester, England and we're watching TV round our friends' house and listening out for the sound of invading mice. Our bags are in disarray in the spare bedroom with clothes, travel adaptors and toiletries strewn about. But my little green ukulele is packed so everything else will surely fall into place. Tomorrow afternoon we will fly out to Istanbul for the first stop on our odyssey across Europe, Turkey and Georgia (the country, not the state in the USA.)

We learned to play cribbage round our friends Ian and Katherine's flat the night before we flew to Turkey. We hope to while away the long hours of boredom playing this game as we no longer have anything to talk about being married and all!