Thursday 20th June

First stop today was the local market which was huge. The only new thing we saw was bales of sheep's wool for sale.

We descended from the town to a huge plain, crossing many large dry riverbeds with the mountains to the north of us, some still with snow.

After a fairly uneventful drive through the countryside passing at one stage hazel nut orchards & a processing plant, we arrived at the border with Georgia.

Here we had our passports & visas checked & stamped before a long walk up shallow steps to arrive at the river border & walk into Georgia for a similar routine. Here we were met by Tamari, our new guide, a tall, slim young lady who welcomed us & shepherded us on to our mini bus.

Off we went, at great speed, for an excellent lunch at a house at Kvareli, complete with local wine & spirits. As the day was hot & humid it was very hard to take too much interest in a visit to an ancient orthodox, church on a hill at Gremi, which had been the capital of the state in the 17th century before it was taken by the Turks.

Then we returned to Kvareli to a big winery which was quite fascinating. They use a mixture of traditional & modern techniques in wine production & also distil their own brandy. Sampling some of the wines we were serenades by 5 men in Georgian traditional dress who sang beautifully, in harmony, in Kakheti style. They very much reminded us of Russian choirs we had heard.

Finally, we drove tour overnight stay at Ilia Lake at a hotel built in the style of a medieval castle overlooking the lake. Here we had an underwhelming buffet dinner a short walk & off to bed.

Friday 21st June

Leaving our hotel, we drove to Sighnaghi, a quaint walled town in the hills overlooking the Alazani Valley, where we inspected the church & walked on the walls. The bus then took us to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, , where we had lunch by the river.

This proved to be a minor disaster as, firstly it started to rain so we all moved inside, then the orders appeared to be mixed up & extreme slowly delivered & finally the settlement of the bills proved farcical. Our group of 5 owed about GEL69 & d*** proffered GEL100 (A$52) but then had to wait 20minutes for first GEL 20 change followed by GEL 9 10 minutes later.

This meant our tour of the town was delayed by nearly 2 hours. We went up to an old Orthodox church above the river & enjoyed the view of the city & across to the Mother of Georgia, a giant statue on the opposite hillside.

We crossed the bridge & visited a Synagogue with an interesting layout, where the women were segregated in one corner of the ground floor by a curtained area.

Moving on, we passed through a small park with a beautiful bust of a famous film star with 4 smaller statues of her in different roles & another of a bronze age seated man, past also an icon painting studio where a monk was painting icons for sale. We also passed the offices of the 'Dream' Party, the largest political party in Georgia & a couple of orthodox churches where services were in progress.

At last our bus picked us up late in the afternoon & thankfully, we were taken to our hotel in Freedom Square, the Trafalgar Square of Tbilisi.

For dinner we found an unusual café & had a brilliant, very inexpensive meal.