As far as the various big cities visited in the Caucasus, Tbilisi was my favorite.

They have a great "antique" flea market on weekends. Tons of military medals including some very rare ones (one of our group was a collector), old silver belts, ethnic jewelry (very expensive), china, glass and other assorted objects. (I do love to shop!)

Tbilisi has a "Baths" district - underground sulphur baths covered by huge domes. Faina and Ellis (two of our group) took a "suite sulphur bath" for two which included being scrubbed down by an attendant. The baths were clean but had very strong sulphur fumes.

Sulphur Baths

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En route back to Tbilisi, we stopped at the cave town of Uplis Tsikhe, a trade route that linked Byzantium with India and China. The Silk Road (the major trade route) had many different ways through the Mideast (Yemen), China (the famous Silk Road), the various "Stans," Turkey and other countries.

The entire town of Uplis Tsikhe was carved into the soft stone of the mountainside. It was always good to stop along the road, even if there wasn't much to see other than walking into the various caves and getting a little exercise. But it was just a short stop on the road to Gori, the main focus of today's trip.

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Some of the more interesting sights along the way to Gudari along the Georgian Military Highway were:

- Electrical/power lines in towns. They were a sight to behold with hundreds of wires strung from every pole, leading to the houses and buildings. Our electricians would have heart failure, definitely not up to code and it was a wonder that entire towns didn't just go up in flames. We all jumped off the bus to take photos and marvel over this web of wires - something none of us (living in the United States) had ever seen or would see in our home towns.

- Women selling hats along the highway. Crocheted, knitted, lamb - black or white - all handmade. Hysterical fun trying them on, and ...buying! View image...buying. Our grandchildren now have curly lamb hats for the proper occasion, should it arise! View image

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The next day was a visit to the David Gareja Monastery, revered as the holiest place in Georgia. Many faithful believe the visiting the monastery three times is equal to visiting Jerusalem. It is a cave complex, with a main monastery and 12 adjacent monasteries. There are also frescos. ( I know it's very famous but, truthfully, I can't remember a single thing about our visit there.)

BUT, I do remember Tbilisi, a charming and interesting city.

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Each border crossing meant changing tour buses, a new local guide, and lots of formalities. MIR handled everything smoothly and off we bused into another country.

The route took us through the important wine-growing areas of the country with beautiful forested mountains as a backdrop, and little villages. Georgia's main borders are: the Peaks of Caucasus on the North, and the Black Sea on the West. It is still geologically active and suffers periodic earthquakes.

Times have been hard for Georgians since the breakup of the U.S.S.R. Their social security system is practically non-existent, the '90's were brutal economically, and some people still sell off their possessions on the streets to get by.

Don't even think of trying to learn their language, "Old Kartvelian", which is not related to any other group of languages. Russian, yes..."Old Kartvelian"... no. Georgian script is one of the 14 world alphabets (possibly influenced by Aramaic). That is why you need...A GUIDE!

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