Along the Georgian Military Highway to Kazbegi

Every Georgian we'd met so far on our travels had told us that we had to visit Kazbegi because it was the "most beautiful place in Georgia" and had very "healthy air". The original name for this tiny town was Stepantsminda but it was renamed Kazbegi in 1925 during Soviet rule after the famous Georgian writer Alexander Kazbegi who was born there. In 2006, the town officially reverted to its original name but pretty much everybody we met still referred to it as Kazbegi including the marshrutka drivers who drove visitors up there. 

Kazbegi is a small town up in the mountains of northern Georgia near the border with Russia. It's located about 1700m above sea level in the Greater Caucasus mountains and is very small with a population of less than 2000. It's scenic location makes it a popular destination for hikers and mountaineering enthusiasts and I'd already seen plenty of beautiful photos of the place long before I even arrived in Georgia so I was very excited about going there armed with my camera. 

Kazbegi town nestled among the Caucasus mountains with its most famous landmark the Gergeti Trinity Church perched on the ridge above it.

Return to Tbilisi: Accidents, World Cup football and Vake Park

We woke up at a reasonable time for once in our hostel in Yerevan, Armenia and had decided to take a marshrutka to go back to Tbilisi. We'd caught an overnight train to get to Yerevan from Tbilisi but the journey had been too short to really get a decent night's sleep and the border crossing had been annoying so we wanted to go for the cheaper daytime option of the marshrutka bus. The only thing that had been putting us off was the awful driving of people in Armenia and Georgia which made every road journey into a white knuckle ride. The marshrutka was very cheap though, only 6500 drahms per person which is about £10 or $16 each. It was faster than the train too as it took a much more direct route.

The train route from Tbilisi to Yerevan takes a long meandering route around most of the circumference of Armenia before it arrives o the capital city.

Echmiadzin, The Armenian Vatican City and Ararat Brandy tour

For our third full day in Armenia, we decided to head to Echmiadzin, the country's holy city where the head of the Armenian Apostolic church resides. Echmiadzin was the capital of Armenia between 180 and 340 AD when the country first converted to Christianity and there are several important churches and a cathedral there.


After the previous day's ultra annoying tour group experience, we decided to stick to using public transport so we headed to Kilikia bus station. We caught an ancient gas powered bus to Echmiadzin. The driver had to get out of the bus and go round the back to start it up! It was a really local bus full of people with metal pails full of vegetables and meat staring curiously at us. It took jut over 30 minutes to slowly trundle to Echmiadzin and the driver only had to restart the engine once on the way.

Gas powered local bus with the engine in  the back. Many of these buses had spare gas cylinders stored on the roof.

First impressions of Yerevan

We arrived in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, early in the morning after a tiring overnight train journey from Tbilisi, Georgia. Our first impressions of the city were that it was very hot, very Soviet and just as confusing to arrive in as its Georgian counterpart. Using our (extremely) rudimentary Russian we asked an old guy in the train station where the metro was and went to try to catch a train to the centre. It was very confusing in the metro station as nearly all the signs were in Armenian script which neither of us understand. Luckily, there were a few signs in Russian too which I can read so we caught a train going in the right direction. There wasn't a word of English anywhere so if you didn't know at least a little Russian you'd be in trouble. I knew my degree in Russian history and culture would be useful one day!

The platform at Yerevan statıon early in the morning.

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!

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.