Saturday 22nd June

After a late start at 10am, we walked across to the National History Museum, where we were guided through 2 rooms of the most exquisite gold & silver jewelry found in burial chambers of wealthy women ranging from 500 BC to 300 AD. The quality & delicacy of the material was quite breath taking & many of the designs were very fine indeed. We all were amazed at the quality & obvious wealth of the people & were told that in some cases they had been buried with servants & horses like the ancient Egyptians. In some pieces diamonds & other precious stones from abroad were incorporated as well as cameos from Rome & silver ware from Persia.

Leaving the museum we drove up to the top of the escarpment to see the 'Mother of Georgia', a 20m statue in aluminium alloy plate with a sword in her right hand & wine in the left hand, before we started to descend the way along the wall of the city, down to a narrow gorge with a waterfall at the end leading into the river. On the other side the creek were a series of old bath houses where hot natural, sulphurous water is used for therapeutic purposes, particularly by Russian visitors.

We walked down to the new lattice covered foot bridge across the river before visiting an enamel workshop where they make cloisonner, enamelling designs on silver using fine wire & various paints which are fired in a furnace to produce fine jewelry etc.

Returning to the hotel we had a snack & visited the National Gallery, mainly of works of 20th century Georgian artists, with one devoted entirely to those of a primitive/naïve painter of village scenes. The works were interesting, as many had been from the early Soviet era even though most had lived out of Georgia for long periods.

Returning to the hotel we chanced on a service in an Orthodox church & stopped to listed to the priest & the sung responses.