Georgia and Armenia – halfway point

On our way to Davit Gareja Monastery on the Georgia-Azerbaijan border

I had every intention of updating the blog on a daily basis but as usual, we have been on the move so much that I haven’t had the time. We finally settled in Goris, Armenia this evening after 5 days on the road and have time to reflect on some of our adventures. Of course, I will include lots of photos.

The trip started in Louisville mid-afternoon last Tuesday and we didn’t arrive in Yerevan until shortly after midnight on Thursday….I think 27 hours of travel.  We picked up our rental car and made the 6 km ride to the hotel.  We were able to sleep for seven hours or so before hitting the road for our 6 hour drive to Tbilisi, Georgia on Thursday morning.  Oddly enough, I didn’t suffer any ill effects from the travel and time change and have felt really good the entire trip….so far.  I think the rest of the crew is in great shape, as well.

We stopped at a really cool restaurant on the shore of Lake Sevan, Armenia and had some local fish and other things.  The border crossing into Georgia was fairly uneventful once we figured out that only the driver (Derek) was allowed to cross the border in the car.  The rest of us had to get out and go through the passport control building on foot.

We arrived in Tbilisi late afternoon and had a bit of a tough time navigating the city to our AirBNB home.  We ended up on a small one-way street where we got stuck.  Derek skillfully backed his way out around several cars and many people and parked.  Luckily for us, our house was only a couple hundred meters away.

We settled into the house, had dinner at one of the nearby wine restaurants and then walked around the old town for several hours.  We then took the aerial tram to the top of one of Tbilisi’s hills and then walked back down to the house.  Here are some photos from day 1:

We decided to stay in Tbilisi for day 2 so that we could recharge our tired bodies; the long plane ride and car travel was starting to wear us down a bit.  We traveled all over old town Tbilisi and walked many of the meandering small streets.  We visited a lot of shops, had lunch which included two Georgian favorites, khachapuri which is a kind of salty cheesy bread and khinkali, a dumpling that is filled with various items like meat, cheese and mushrooms.  We were shocked by the incredibly cheap prices for food and drink over here. Lunch for four including four beers was only $26.  The only shock we received is when we ordered three 20-year-old Armenian brandies…which came to $40…almost twice the cost of our lunch.

Day 2 also included a great dinner at Culinarium, a restaurant that was recently featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown program.  After that we had a hookah at one of the local old town bars. Here are some photos from day 2:

The next day started out with a big surprise.  We walked to our car to start our ride to Georgian wine country but found that our rental car was gone.  Apparently, it was Georgian election day and we were parked next to one of the main government buildings. Fears of big fines and major damage to the car went through our minds as we approached a policeman to ask about the car.  He made a quick call on his phone and then pointed to a spot about 100 meters away.  They had somehow moved our car–a huge Toyota Land Cruiser–and placed it perfectly about an inch away from a parking wall with no damage to the vehicle at all.

After the big relief was behind us, we headed out to the Kakheti wine region of Georgia. My personal expectation was that we would be visiting wineries that looked similar to Napa or Sonoma but that did not turn out to be the case at all.  Though we did see a few vineyards once we reached Kakheti, there were no recognizable wineries.  We ended up driving into the town of Sighnaghi where a lot of the wineries had setup retail stores.  We visited Pheasant’s Tears winery where a Canadian college student provided us with a wine tasting and a small tour of the grounds.  Many of the Georgian wines are all natural and aged in clay pots.  They have a much different taste than wines from other parts of the world but they were still very good.

We got some advice from our Canadian host to travel to Telavi to visit the Alaverdi Monastery and Winery.  We made the one-hour trek and visited the monastery which was impressive but there was no winery on the premises.  Either we misconstrued what the Canadian had told us or the winery was not open the day we visited.  Regardless, it was worth the trip.

Our big laugh of the day came when we pulled over to the side of the road in Alaverdi and sent Mel out to ask some locals directions to any wineries in the area.  Much gesticulation occurred between Mel and the locals but she wasn’t making much progress.  Finally she came back to the car and grabbed a bottle of wine we bought earlier, thinking that if she showed them a bottle of wine, they might get the message.  One of the local ladies took the bottle in her hands while the three of us were screaming out the window to get it back…we thought she might think we were giving her a gift.  Mel’s efforts were fruitless (literally) and we headed back out on the road to find a local restaurant.

We found one in our guidebook called Schuchmann and punched the address into our GPS.  After raveling several miles on tiny and awful back roads, we were about to give up and head back to Tbilisi.  Just as we were about to turn around we stumbled upon the sign to Schuchmann winery.  It was an impressively built hotel and winery.  We had dinner (which was so-so), a wine tasting and a 30 minute tour of the facilities.  All of this cost about $100…another culinary bargain.

Our intention before we started the trip was to never travel during the evening because we were told the road conditions were awful and many types of animals wandered the road. That was mostly true as we encountered potholes, cows, chickens, pigs, sheep and dogs. What we didn’t expect this evening is that the road we chose back to Tbilisi was through the Caucasian mountains and we were all a bit on edge the entire way back as we drove, what seemed to be, a thousand switchbacks through the mountains.  A truly white-knuckle drive back the entire way.

Here are a few photos from day 3:

Day 4 involved a two-hour drive to the Davit Gareja monastery on the Georgia-Azerbaijan border.  This became one of the highlights of our trip.  We lucked out and met an Israeli couple who hired a guide and invited us along to join them.  If not for that bit of luck, we would have probably visited the main monastery buildings for 30 minutes or so and headed back to Tbilisi.

The guide was very good and led us to the back side of the mountains where there were numerous caves that served as parts of the older monastery.  Many of these caves were decorated with old religious paintings and writings carved in the stone walls.

The guide’s English was very limited but we understood most of what he was explaining.  He also took his time leading us through the various caves and made sure we had a good understanding of what each cave was used for.

It was also very cool that we were straddling the Georgia-Azerbaijan border as we made our way across the crest of the mountain.  A great day!

We drove back across the border to Yerevan, Armenia, had dinner at the hotel restaurant and rested for our long drive to Goris the next morning.

We headed out of Yerevan around 10AM in fairly bad traffic and decided to visit the Khor Virap monastery about 30 minutes south of Yerevan on our way to Goris.  Khor Virap sits almost directly on the closed border between Armenia and Turkey.  The backdrop of Khor Virap is the spectacular view of Mt. Ararat–though these days it is only partly visible because of the pollution from Yerevan.  For those of you that paid attention in Sunday school, Mt. Ararat is where Noah’s ark came to rest after the flood.  I didn’t see it.

We then continued on our way towards Goris and stopped about an hour later in the town of Areni to visit the Areni Wine shop.  We had a tasting of 16 and 20 year old Areni area wine, some Armenian coffee and dried fruit and then bought lots of souvenirs and wine. The folks there spoke very good English and treated us well.  The Areni region is one of the first wine making areas in history…dating back some 6000 years or so.

Down the road a few kilometers we turned in to visit the Norovank monastery which is tucked several miles into a canyon on the side of a hill.  It was a spectacular setting and well worth the visit.

On our way out, we had another stroke of luck when we came across what we thought was a simple picnic area but it turned out to be a cave restaurant.  We pulled in and had traditional Armenian chicken barbecue and roasted potatoes.  The Iranian-Armenians next to us shared their homemade vodka with us and we talked about the US and Iran for a bit before heading out for the remainder of our trip to Goris.

The last 30 minutes of our trip into Goris was through heavy fog but we found our B&B without any problems.  Khackick’s B&B was the first to open in Armenia and our host was very friendly and offered a lot of good advice for visiting the area.

We went to bed early as we planned to visit Tatev monastery the next morning.  Pics from day 5:

Here is a 360 degree photo from the Khor Virap monastery. If you are on a PC you can click and drag anywhere in the photo to see the full 360 view. If you are using a tablet, you can expand the photo by clicking the small square in the lower right of the photo and then moving your tablet in a circle. Enjoy.