Global Wanderer

26/6/2023 – 29/6/2023

No time for breakfast today! We’ve got an early-ish flight to Tbilisi, so instead of breakfast, we’re in a taxi, headed to the airport! After arriving at Terminal 1, where we thought we were flying from, we ended up having to walk 50 metres over to Terminal 2, which despite the short distance away, felt like something from a different era entirely. Terminal 1 was emblematic of Baku’s status as a Grand Prix destination, the capital of a wealthy, oil-rich country, and was brand new. Terminal 2 was very much a relic from Baku’s Soviet past – the walls were an off-green colour (anyone who has been to a post-Soviet country with places like this will know exactly what I’m talking about!), and there was a single café open, where we stopped for coffee. Soon enough, we were boarding our flight to Tbilisi – flying with Azerbaijan Airlines’ budget carrier, Buta.

The flight was nice and short, and in no time at all we were waiting in the Georgian immigration queue. This process took a little longer than expected, mostly due to the serious scrutiny that my passport faced – Dad has a new Australian passport, but mine is 5 years old and a previous edition, so it looks entirely different. On top of that, my photo looks NOTHING like me now, and the immigration officer seemed intent on keeping me waiting. Eventually though, I was let through, and we headed towards baggage reclaim. Whilst Dad waited for his bag, I went and picked up a SIM card – Tbilisi has this awesome free SIM card thing going, where the official telecom companies hand out cards at the airport to incoming tourists, who can then top them up on their own. By the time I’d done this, Dad had located his bag, and we headed out of the airport to the bus stop. There is a bus – number 337 – that runs between the city and the airport, is incredibly efficient, and very cheap. You can pay using your card with Tap & Go (I actually used Apple Pay on my phone!), and it cost us a grand total of $1.74 for two tickets to the city.

Before long, we had made it into the city centre, and we hopped off just after the Bridge of Peace. It was about a 30-minute walk to our accommodation, Matiane Hotel, which we thought would be a breeze until we realised that it was a straight walk up the hillside…

Matiane Boutique Hotel was located pretty much at the top of one of Tbilisi’s many hills, right in the middle of the Old Town. The hotel itself is beautiful, and the views from the street were magnificent – worth the hike up! Given we still had half of the day left, we decided to head further up the Tbilisi hillside to Narikala Fortress, an old, imposing monastery that forms a major part of Tbilisi’s skyline.

Walking through Tbilisi’s OId Town is an experience – some buildings are beautiful and preserved, and other are dilapidated and falling apart like this.

Despite being at a similar elevation to where we were staying, to get to Narikala we had to wander through the maze of street in the Old Town, before climbing BACK up the hillside. It is absolutely worth it though – when we finally made it to the fortress, the views over Tbilisi were magnificent. At this point, we realised that despite how high up we were, the rest of the hillside, featuring the colossal Mother of Georgia statue, was much further up. Having gotten a second wind, Dad and I decided to continue up the slope towards the statue.

Just before the Mother of Georgia statue is one end of the cable car, which connects Rike Park with Narikala and the statue. Between the cable car station and the statue are a number of food, drink, and souvenir stalls, all operating at what is pretty much Tbilisi’s highest point, offering uninterrupted views across the city. Given the heat, the humidity, and our general fatigue from travelling all day, I decided to treat myself to a hilltop trdelnik – or chimney cake – filled with ice-cream and fresh fruit. Absolutely worth it.

Instead of going back the way we came, Dad and I decided to take an alternate route. Just underneath the Mother of Georgia statue is a small set of stairs that winds its way through the hillside and drops you at the top of a steep street in the middle of the Old Town. Wandering through the mazy streets, we headed back towards the centre of Tbilisi. Having read about Georgian wine prior to coming, I decided along the way that we should stop at a wine store for some tastings (literally every shop selling wine in Tbilisi offers free tastings of Georgian wine!). After a great lesson in Georgian wine production from the shop owner – who was very understanding about our inability to purchase any (as we were flying to Iran in a few days) – we headed along the river into Rike Park. This giant green space is home to a few notable attractions, including the strangely shaped Music and Exhibition Centre (apparently to improve the acoustics), and a statue of Ronald Reagan on a park bench.

Today though, Rike Park had become home to what appeared to be a competitive inter-university pep rally. Coloured flares had been lit, marching bands were playing, and the only thing that convinced us that we weren’t in the middle of a protest was the gigantic flags waved by each university showing their name and crest. Speedboats were racing down the river playing each university’s anthem, and students occupied the entirety of Rike Park and the Bridge of Peace. Being as we are, Dad and I decided to follow them across the bridge on their march, mostly to get an idea of what exactly they were up to! Certainly an interesting experience!

After heading back to Matiane for a quick change of clothes, we headed to the nearest metro station, and caught a train out to the Marjanishvili neighbourhood, in Tbilisi’s north. Recommended on just about every travel blog we had read, was a local restaurant here, called Mapshalia. This place is run by a lovely old Georgian lady who speaks only Russian and Georgian, and serves incredible Georgian food to a mostly-local crowd, at very affordable prices. We waited our turn for a table – the restaurant is underneath a building and is quite small, but there’s a pretty fast turnover of clientele, so a table seems to pop up free every few minutes – and I translated the Russian menu into English. The food here was amazing, and we left feeling very full! After wandering around the Marjanishivili area for a little while, we headed back to the metro station, caught the train, and headed back to our accommodation.

As the capital of a primarily Orthodox Christian country, Tbilisi has more than its fair share of iconic churches. Our plan today was to visit a few of these, whilst walking through a big chunk of the city’s eastern neighbourhoods. After breakfast at Matiane, we headed out east, and crossed over the river to get to the Metekhi church. This particular building is nestled into the hillside, and is a really prominent feature in Tbilisi as you look out from the old city area towards Rike Park and Europe Square. The church was unfortunately shut, but the grounds were open, and so we wandered down towards the riverbank, taking in the old frescoes and paintings along the way.

We then headed northward towards the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi. This building is probably the most noticeable in all of Tbilisi, thanks to two things: its placement on a high point in the centre of the city; and its enormous golden dome. It was pretty much impossible to get a good photo of it the day before when we’d hiked up to Narikala, because the sun was shining so intensely on the reflective surface. Given its lofty position, the area around the cathedral was great for the 360º views around Tbilisi, and the interior was incredibly ornately decorated.

Walking back south towards the Old Town, we decided to search for a rather unique structure – the Leaning Clocktower of Tbilisi. It sits outside a puppet theatre, in the northern part of the Old Town, built in 2011, and is strangely fascinating (and rather pretty!).

The centre of the old town is quite busy with bars and restaurants, lots of which were obviously catering for tourists. We found quite quickly though, that if you ventured even 50 metres down a side street, the hustle and bustle would abruptly cease, and there were some quiet little spots where you were able to rest up and have a drink. We stopped at one of these small bars for a beer, before heading back up the hillside to our accommodation. We were joined along the way by a Curious Canine – Tbilisi is absolutely chock-full of dogs, which are almost all tagged and vaccinated, are docile, and are widely considered to be the city’s pets – who absolutely earned himself a little treat when we finally reached our hotel! At this point, it was already getting quite dark, and we decided to call it an early night!

The house down the road from our hotel, which we nicknamed the ‘Baba Yaga’ house – for any Tashi fans out there!

We decided to spend our final full day in Tbilisi venturing out to some of the outer regions of the city – on foot, of course! On our way, we stopped back off at Rike Park to hunt for the Ronald Reagan statue, which we took many a photo with!

Reagan waiting for someone to sit and chat…

One of the great things about walking blindly through an unknown area is that you sometimes run in to fascinating things. Tucked away in a side street, behind a wall of trees and surrounded by old buildings, we found a Catholic church, St Apostles Peter and Paul, which had been constructed in the 1800s by a Polish priest, who had been exiled along with many other Polish Catholics, to the wider Caucasus region in the mid-19^th century. The church itself was absolutely beautiful, and completely devoid of people, which meant we could wander around by ourselves in peace.

We continued along, this time aiming for a landmark – the Fabrika building. This gigantic old warehouse building used to be a textile factory during the Soviet era, which fell into disrepair after its dissolution. In recent years however, it’s been done up, now home to a hostel, various cafes, and an art exhibition area for budding Georgian artists to display their work. It’s a fascinating turnaround, and the building seems to now be the focal point for a lively young student district.

The exterior of the enormous Fabrika building.

Tbilisi is a city clearly in the midst of a modernisation project – there are cranes along the skyline, and glistening towers are visible everywhere – but large parts of the city are quite old and ‘lived in’. As we continued our long circuitous route through the city, we came across a great variety of neighbourhoods showing all of the different sides of Tbilisi: dilapidated old streets, Soviet-era constructions, beautiful old and refurbished buildings, and modern projects. The contrast was crazy, but fascinating at the same time, and gave me the sense that Tbilisi was very much a living, breathing city.

A selection of shots from the streets of Tbilisi. The photo of the staircase was actually from the inside of an abandoned embassy building we stumbled upon!

We’d eventually made it back around to the Old Town, and decided to walk up the street staircase we’d found a few days earlier up to the Mother of Georgia statue, before heading down past Narikala to find food. We decided to stop and sit down by the street next to a bakery, where we bought khachapuri, a traditional Georgian food which is essentially bread filled with cheese –yes, it was just as amazing as it sounds – and watched the street go by, even spotting several priests we’d seen earlier in the day.

The staircase that you walk up quite literally passes through residential buildings, and I think is pretty much used as if it were a street in its own right!

Knowing we had a long day coming up, we headed back across the river towards our accommodation, stopping for 20 minutes or so on the bridge to watch the sun set over the Old Town. It was an absolutely beautiful sight, with the dying sunlight bouncing off the stone to create an almost-golden hue. I won’t be forgetting that any time soon!