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Georgia Photo Trip Report

gavin

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I’ve had so little motivation to hammer the rest of the summer trip out in here, but here’s the next bit, months after the fact. I had three full days here, but I’ll just knock it all out in this single post.

Oh, if you were expecting Georgia as in the US state, sorry, but no. This was Georgia the country, which I flew into after spending a few days in Azerbaijan. So, any of you basic bitches who are only interested in reading about places you’ve already been to yourself already might want to stop now.

If you’re still reading, I had an evening flight from Baku to Tbilisi, but didn’t do anything that evening. The next day was a general city day, but I tried to squeeze in a couple of +1s. The city is pretty big, but anything of any real note for tourists is all very concentrated around one main area and is very walkable. It was absolutely lovely, but away from that main area, which I headed out of a couple of times for creds, was a bit run down and s**t, which I guess is mostly true of any major city.

Day 1 – Tbilisi
I was staying right in that main area though, so just went for a random wander that first morning. The weather makes it look a bit gloomy, but I really liked this place.

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I found this completely accidentally, but loved it. It’s a puppet theatre (no shows at that time of year) and the owner built the fab clock tower by himself apparently.

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Georgia – Saint George. Get it?

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This was being saved for later:

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It was early afternoon by this point. Since I’d covered one section of the city already, I decided to pick up a couple of +1s.

Gldani Park

A metro ride to a really horrible area, followed by a ten-minute bus ride to get this:

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Great.

Then it was back to the metro to get here, which was just a few minutes’ walk from the station and not too far out of the city at all.

Samgori Park

No sign of life here at all. It was mid-afternoon though, so I figured it might be an evening place and that I would try again another time if I could be bothered.

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Back to the tourist s**t then, heading back into the city and up to some church.

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And then back down to the river area. Most tourist stuff is on either side of a fairly short stretch of river, including a bunch of sulfur baths (the domed buildings) with a river/waterfall area behind. Photo overdose:

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I got food at an “expensive” fancy restaurant in the main tourist area, which was amazing and cost less than I pay here for lunch at a crappy chain restaurant, and called it a day.

Day 2 – Outside Tbilisi

As with Baku, I booked myself onto a day tour to see a bunch of stuff outside. As I’ve said before, I’ve never really liked this style of doing things, preferring to do stuff myself, but, again, it was a very easy option. It turned out to be fab though. The places were all amazing, but it was also a fab little group of people with a really great tour guide who was really friendly and chilled out and didn’t feel the need to constantly bore everyone to death with pointless information.

Anyway, first up was this view:

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Then it was onto this place (I think it was called Ananuri? Can’t be arsed to check now) which was gorgeous.

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We stopped for lunch after that, with the option of whitewater rafting. I decided to do that since it was only about 15 quid and was better than just hanging around the restaurant. I didn’t take my phone or camera though since it was really wet. It was fun though, not particularly intense, but a good way to see a bit of the area. It passed through this bit where two different-coloured rivers meet:

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Continuing up into the mountains then. The scenery through the whole journey was stunning, and a bit frightening at times since the roads were narrow, winding and ridiculously high up with very little to stop cars from plunging over the edge. We went up through some ski resort areas to some monument on top of a mountain. The monument was alright, but the views were amazing. There was an option to do paragliding, but I didn’t have enough cash on me. I’ve done it before, so probably wouldn’t have done it anyway.

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The final stop was another church on a hill, and would have been pretty impressive if the mist hadn’t rolled in by that point, meaning that there wasn’t much to see from up there. It’s the one right on the top of the hill in the first photo. Our minibus had no chance of getting up there, so we transferred to a few smaller cars.

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We had dinner close by then a long drive back to Tbilisi, getting back at around 10pm, meaning that the whole trip had been about 14 hours. It was well worth doing though.

Day 3 – More Tbilisi

I did a bit of a repeat of part of the first day since the weather was much nicer, but also took the cable car up to some fortress area and then walked back down. There’s not much up there, but the views were decent.

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The best thing you can see from up there is this, where I headed to next:

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Mtatsminda Park

Access is via a funicular. You buy a card at the bottom and put credit it on for both the funicular and any rides you want at the top.

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The view from the top is pretty impressive.

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There’s a decent enough ride selection at the top. The “highlight” and Georgia’s biggest coaster, is American Mountains (nothing American about it since it’s a Chinese looper).

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Clearly, it’s nothing amazing, but it was still a decent-sized place given where it was, and made me think even more about how Baku, with double the population, more free space and a s**tload more money can’t manage to throw something up.

Some +1s then.

Vake Park

Vake is quite a posh area of the city, with a pretty impressive park which includes a tiny amusement park area, featuring yet another big apple.

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Mushtaidi Park

Can you guess what’s in here?

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I ended the day by heading back to the place from the first day since it was later in the day than the first time.

Samgori Park Take 2

Nope. It’s f**ked. Some kids were using the swinging ship as a place to hang out, but this place is clearly closed, which I confirmed with someone else later who had spoken to someone in a food kiosk (the only thing open on their visit, but not by the time I was there) who said that nothing would be reopening.

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I had a ridiculously early start the next morning to get to the final city/country of the trip, which I’ll try and get to soon.
 

Hixee

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Wow, some excellent views from those mountain overlooks. Churches propped on the edges of cliffs is always rather impressive, and you got some great photos!

Also rather like the puppet theater clock-tower thing. Beautiful in a strange kind of way.

Looks better than the real Georgia, that's for sure. Even if it doesn't have a B&M. :p
 
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