2013_09_19 Thursday: Borjomi - Vardzia - Borjomi

The day started with a homemade breakfast by Neta and Alon. As, mentioned yesterday, we're sharing a guesthouse in the form of an apartment, which is quite nice. Shakshuka was served. 

Breakfast: Yummy!

This guesthouse has grape trees, which is real nice. They taste the same as those given to us by the taxi driver in Telavi (wine tour…).

Our jeep and grapes

The day started in actuality at 9:30 when we headed to a place called Vardzia, some 2 hours away (~120km south), not too far from the Turkish border. We had a driver who drove us there and to other points of interest for a total of 100GEL (~$60). The driver was very nice, knew some English, used to be a commercial pilot, and visited Israel 5 times in the past. Funny enough, he had Israeli music (I suppose a necessity given the exorbitant number of Israeli tourists).

On the way we stopped at a place called Rabat, which is a restored castle-like place that has a mosque in the center (yellow dome, baring some resemblance to the "Dome of the Rock" in Jerusalem).

Rabat

Vardzia is a place where lots of "rooms" have been carved into the rock. It's a place where monks live/used to live. Very impressive. The drive there had a new type of views: desert views. Quite nice indeed.

Vardzia

Left to Right: Daniel, Alon, Neta, Sharon

When we finished with Vardzia, I played some Backgammon (Shesh-Besh) with a local. I beat him the first game, then he asked for a rematch, and got lucky beating me barely (by one throw of the dice).

On the way back to Borjomi we passed by a funny potato-filled van. Later, we stopped at a monastery (called Green Monastery), who's main interest were 4 cute puppies who were there and their mother…

Potato Truck

Puppy Dinner

In Borjomi, Sharon and I did the cable cart that presents nice view of the town, and drank from a warm natural fountain that had real bad taste and smelled like sulfur..

Cable cart view

After the cable cart and bad-taste natural hot water, we joined Neta and Alon for dinner at Old City Borjomi restaurant (yes, we were there last night as well). They have real good beef stew/soup, and fantastic freshly made oven baked bread with egg on top (and cheese, which can be removed...).

A word about Israelis: Throughout the entire day we ran into loads of Israelis (older folks mostly), who were in guided tours. I would say that so far we must have run into well more than 100 Israelis. By far the most dominant tourist bunch..

TECHNICAL NOTE: Internet is back. Photos have been added to entries from Sep 14 and onward.