Monday 24th June

Off we went this morning having been warned to wear 'comfortable shoes' & an hour later we found out why.

First stop was at the Khertvisi Fortress, at the confluence of 2 rivers where it controls passage on the road. Noted in the 2nd century BC when Alexander the Great was there, the present one was built in the 11th century & has been added to since. It was quite a climb to reach it from the road & to explore it but the views made it worthwhile.

We moved on beside the river & stopped opposite a huge cliff on the other side with hordes of caves carved into its face. This was Vardzia, a town of cave dwellers from the 12th century, which we then went on to visit.

To get to the first level we took a bus & then walked & walked & walked, up along paths, rough stairs, ladders & passages inspecting the rooms of various sizes, on to the old bell tower on an outcrop & the church hewn into the rock. Apparently, there are about 3,000 caves in all & it felt as if we saw every one. The descent from the complex was even more taxing than the climbing, as the steps were often damaged & the depth of some meant doing them on our bottoms. After about 2 hours we reached the car park & then after a short break we returned to Akhaltsikhe, in a shower of rain & hail which luckily cleared before we arrived.

Here we looked forward to a nice rest but it was not to be, as we drove straight up to the Rabat Fortress which dominates the town. The complex is huge & seems to reflect its history in that it includes: a church, a nunnery, a mosque, a madrassa, a Russian 19th century pavilion, a hotel, formal Moorish style gardens & a keep which was used as a prison. Our local guide insisted on addressing us as 'My dears' which, added to her unusual English, made it an interesting, if somewhat taxing, exploration.

It was a fascinating place but none of us were in the mood to concentrate, after our caving ordeal.

Tuesday 25th June

Started out at 8.30 returning towards Tbilisi before turning off for Gori & then to Uplistsikhe, to see the Cave Town, another one carved into a sandstone outcrop in the bend of the river but far older than the one seen yesterday. Here, d*** managed to lose the group, who went to the museum which he thought must be upon the rock face. Off he went, following the numbers of the various places of interest but without success, so, as he didn't want to descend, he kept on up to the small church at the top of the ridge. Luckily the sandstone was easier to walk on, although it was warming up & having been up, he started to descend, when he met the rest of the group on their way up.

The caves were first occupied in the Bronze age & were sacred in pagan times for several centuries BC. They had been hollowed out & decorated in some rooms and even include a theatre & a 3 nave basilica, inside a wall system to allow them to be defended. Over centuries they were overrun by enemies who sacked the place & were abandoned to be rediscovered in the 1830s. In some ways it reminded us of Petra but on a very minor scale, as the town was on the Silk Road & was a centre for east west trading.

Returning to Gori we visited the museum of the birthplace of Georgia's finest export & favourite son, Joseph Stalin. The museum, devoted to his memory is a large sandstone building with a couple of floors of material about our hero. Unfortunately, the layout is desperately boring, as it has pictures & maps but no attempt was made to explain anything either in Russian, Georgian or English, so it was all rather wasted on u,s particularly as the interior was hot & humid. Naturally, the Georgians seem somewhat ambivalent about him, as they lost about 20% of their territory to the Russians in 2008 & relations are still very strained.

Finally, we set off along the Georgian Military Highway, which links Russia with Georgia & stopped at the fortress of Ananuri, which holds 2 churches & overlooks a giant artificial lake. Built in the 13th century & modified later it is an interesting complex to see.

An hour later we arrived at our hotel in the ski resort of Gudauri & were very pleased to see it after a long day's travel.