Oh my! In the first couple of minutes of being in Tbilisi I knew I was going to like it a lot more than Armenia! Tbilisi really has c...

Tbilisi!

/
1 Comments


 Oh my! In the first couple of minutes of being in Tbilisi I knew I was going to like it a lot more than Armenia! Tbilisi really has character; I think this city is a little hard to describe because it is a little crazy! One minute I was walking in cobble stone streets with houses that looked like they were a small earthquake away from totally falling down and the next minute I was walking on a futuristic looking bridge that looked like something out of the Jetson’s!

My first night at the hostel I met my new friend Zhaniya from Kazakstan and we decided to go for a traditional Georgian dinner. I literally fell in love with Georgian Food.
Traditional Georgian dumplings, Kinkhali.

Georgian Pizza, Imeruli Khachapuri

Eggplant rolls with Walnuts! Yumm

As we were waiting for our food I noticed that the family seating next to us had just ordered a lot of desserts, paid their bill and left but the table was half full with left overs! Most of the desserts were untouched, you could feed a whole family for 2 days with what was left and they didn't take it home! I couldn't believe it so much food was going to waste. I told Zhaniya and she said it is part of the Georgian culture, they order a lot, don't eat it all and won't take it home. In a way is a form of showing off what they have... so sad, I wanted to take it and give it to the poor (or eat it as I was SO hungry!)

Tbilisi quickly became my hop city to come and go to other cities in Georgia. After visiting Kazbegi with Zhaniya we came back and we had gained a new friend, Ingrid from London.

Ingrid and I decided to stay in the old part of town in a hostel and she took me on a little tour of the old Tbilisi






Traditional Churchckela...  Walnut halves dipped in grape juice.










Lots of baths in Tbilisi!





That night the three of us went out for dinner at one of the traditional Georgian Taberns, Racha Dukhan.


Lobio (beans) and eggplant with walnuts.
 In the kitchen there was the cutest grandma making the khinkhali from scratch!



After dinner the ladies wanted to get some vino so we stopped at one of the many wine shops in old town:


Cheers ladies!


Super cool labels!
 We ended the night with some jazz at an outdoor bar.

On my way back from touring some towns with Ingrid I returned once again and went up to the Narikala Fortress to check out the view from there. 
The first time I went up the gondola with an Iranian girl but the queue took us more than an hour and by the time we made it up it had gotten dark. The following day I decided to walk and it took me about 10 minutes and made it right on time to get the beautiful sunset!
Sunset was magical and the night view with all the Tbilisi lights on was just spectacular!


The bridge of Peace






View of the hill from the other side:





One of the many Churchkela shops!

On one of my many days I decided to go check out the famous Sameba Cathedral so I googled it and I took a bus there, a very long bus to the wrong church! haha As I arrived I thought it was weird it was so far and then it didn't have the golden top and I re googled it and it turned out to be almost in front of my hostel but up the hill so I returned and went to the right church. The Sameba Cathedral is the main church for the Georgian Orthodox and its for sure majestic with a spectacular view of Tbilisi from it.





 On my last day I decided to go to Mtskheta to check out the former capital of Georgia. I took the metro to Didube and then a bus to Mtskheta.

When I arrived to what I thought was Mtskheta I didn't get off because I really didn't know if it was there and 2 guys who looked like tourists didn't get off either. After a couple of minutes driving the bus driver stopped and told them to get off and I followed. I approached them and asked them if they wanted to go to Jvari and they said yes. I had read about the taxi cost and tried to bargain but I think we were far from where there are lots of taxis so we kind of didn't have the grounds to bargains and went with an overpriced taxi but split 3 ways it just fine.

The guys ended up being super nice; Erik is a violin player from Costa Rica living in St Petersburg and Martins from Latvia. Together we went to Jravi monastery which in reality looked like any other monastery in Georgia but the view from there was pretty nice!



View of Mtskheta from Javri Monastery





From there the taxi driver brought us back down to Mtskheta, a very touristy town with yet another church.
Jravi at the top of the hill!





We quickly escaped the touristy town and hitch hiked to a restaurant recommended to Martins by a local and finally made our way back to Tbilisi!


On my last night I decided to get yet more Georgian food..

Phkali, vegetable pates! yum!

Khachapuri with spinach!
And of course some soviet ice cream to end my Georgian visit!





You may also like

About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

1 comment:

Powered by Blogger.

Subscribe

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Instagram

About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com