Ankara, Türkiye

We were still recovering from our colds, so relaxed a bit in our room after another large breakfast.

We got our day under way around 11am. One of the biggest things to see in Ankara is Anıtkabir, a masoleum complex and final resting place of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Türkiye.

It was a nicer day than yesterday (high of 12C) and we hadn’t done much walking the past few days, so decided on the hour-long walk rather than a taxi. We had a good view of Anıtkabir from our room, it didn’t look that far. Also it’s a great way to see a city.

So headed out, Google Maps leading the way. We started off downhill, which was easy. Crossed through a hospital area, across a couple highway interchanges with pedestrian over and underpasses, through a lively university area, and finally a leafy neighbourhood of low-rises. The sidewalks were in good shape, and busy. In particular, the areas around the highway underpasses were really busy with pedestrians, almost like a transit hub.

(I’m still not clear on what the third character is in Anıtkabir, I cut and pasted the name from Wikipedia. It’s ASCII code 305, which the internet says is ‘dz’)

Anyways, we reached Anıtkabir around noon. There was a security check, where we also stored our backpacks. We then continued our walk through the Peace Park to the masoleum complex.

There were lots of tourists here, I’d guess about an 80-20 split between Turkish and foreigners. It’s an important site for Turks. The plaza is massive, 129m x 84m, so it didn’t seem too crowded. We walked around the circumference, and then stepped into the mausoleum itself. It’s impressive on its own, with an 27m high ceiling.

After we walked down the Road of Lions, a 262m long pedestrian walkway, flanked by 12 pairs of lions on both sides. The tiled walkway has a 5cm gap between the tiles, which we found tricky to walk on. Wikipedia says it’s by design to force visitors to take their time, although there is a ‘citation needed’ label on this.

We lucked out and reached the end of the pathway just before 1pm and witnessed the changing of the guard.

We walked back to the plaza and checked out the Independence War Museum in the buildings surrounding the plaza. It has recreations, paintings and historical documents from the War of Independence from 1919-1923.

It was about 2pm by time we got through everything. We had lunch at a bakery/restaurant just outside the gates, which catered to tourists but was pretty good. Their coffee and halva were excellent.

We decided to walk back home, we were able to get most of the way by memory. I napped the rest of the afternoon. We were still full from breakfast and lunch, so just skipped dinner.

Ankara, Türkiye

Breakfast was quite good at our hotel in Ankara, a traditional spread of cheeses, olives, vegetables and baked goods, plus freshly squeezed orange juice, brewed tea, and eggs to order. Also, sour cherry jam :) Heather tried their menemen, (scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers, onions and spices), and said it was one of the best she’s tried, better than the shakshuka from Pasaj, a Turkish brunch place near our home in Toronto.

All the sites we wanted to visit today were within a five minute walk of our hotel. (We still took our umbrellas though). First up was the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, housed in a former bazaar. It’s one of the few museums open on Mondays in Ankara. It was really good, although the volume of archaeological artefacts became a bit overwhelming for me.

We then walked over to Aslanhane Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in Ankara (13th century). Heather didn’t have a head covering, so we decided instead to grab lunch first.

We ate at random kebab place, one of the few open on Mondays. We were watching the other tables to figure out the etiquette. The kebab skewers are saved at the table, so that they can tally up the cost after. We finished with Turkish coffees and split a kadayif dolmasi, a dessert made from thin strands of pastry wrapped around a nut filling.

We went back to the hotel to put on extra layers. I had started the day with just a puffy jacket. Now I was maxed out in winter gear, adding on my windbreaker, toque, gloves and neck buff. (It was only 5C with a colder feels-like). Heather also added a long scarf she bought in Athens, which could double as a head covering for mosques.

Properly attired, we ventured back out. The streets around the hotel are a maze of cute little shops and cafés, mixed in with working neighbourhood shops like hardware stores and grocery stores. I posted a pic that I labelled as grains, although I think it’s mostly pulses. (I’d have to talk with the tech folks about why it’s hard to update a caption after posting).

Our hotel was directly opposite the Ankara Castle Gate and Clock Tower, so we explored the citadel area next, with more boutique stores and souvenir shops. We climbed up the Şark Kulesi (East Tower) for great views of the city. We walked a bit further into the citadel, towards the White Fort, but turned around before we got all the way there (the fort is more impressive to look at from a distance).

We walked back out, and went back to Aslanhane Mosque. There was a friendly caretaker who used a translation app to explain a few things about the mosque. We took some pics and gave a small donation.

We wandered a bit more around the maze of streets, and that was it for our day.

Ankara, Türkiye

The Yotel at IST was surprisingly quiet, given the number of guests that must come and go at all hours.

Breakfast was quite good, with a standard buffet, and eggs to order (I only noticed this sign afterwards).

We were quick packing up cause we hardly unpacked anything. Checkout was also easy - we just dropped the passkeys in a box in the lobby and left! I have to say I am very impressed with Yotel.

We were familiar with the airport layout from our walk yesterday. It was still pretty quiet at 9am, there was no lineup for security. The domestic departures is a nicer place to hang out compared to the international terminal.

We were only allowed one checked bag each, so I had to take our carry on suitcase as, well, carry on, and compete for luggage space in the overhead bins. It wasn’t a full flight so we had no issues.

The flight was only 45 minutes, and then we were in Ankara! Our driver had already WhatsApp’d to give his exact waiting spot. It did remind me of flying from Toronto to Ottawa - YOW is much more peaceful and laid back than YYZ. (I’ve only caught a connecting flight in Ottawa, but you still get the airport experience).

Anyways the drive into Ankara was pretty, through hills and valleys. The trees were just starting to bloom. Ankara is the 2nd largest city in Türkiye, about five million people. The airport has good access to the centre by road, only about 30 minutes.

Our hotel was in a restored caravanserai atop a hill, in the historical part of Ankara. Our room wasn’t ready yet (it was only 1pm) so we left our luggage and went for lunch.

We both got a soup, and then split a salad and manti (sort of like dumplings). It was way too much food - the soup itself (chickpeas, lamb, bulgur and yoghurt) could have been a meal.

Our room was ready by the time we finished eating. The room (as well as the whole hotel) has tons of character.

We were still recovering from our colds (although feeling better today), so just relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

I did make a trip to a laundromat, about a five minute drive. Uber is used more as a way to hail a taxi in Ankara - the only payment option in the app is cash. Anyways it is a convenient way to get a cab.

The laundromat folks were really friendly. In their setup, they do all the operating of the machines; I was there more as a supervisor to approve the temperature selection etc.

I figured I had time to get cash from an ATM and buy some water while the clothes were in the washer. It was cool walking down the street, in a part of town that I wouldn’t otherwise have reason to visit as a tourist. Lots of people just going about their everyday lives.

It was a quick washer, by the time I returned, the clothes were done. The laundromat follks double- and triple-checked with me that I didn’t want the clothes dried, before helping me stuff the clothes into my daypack.

A taxi drove by just as I exited. I used Google Maps to show in Turkish where I was going. Five minutes later I was back at the hotel, all my errands completed.

I was lucky too with the weather. It was sunny the whole time I was out. Dark clouds rolled in shortly after I returned, and it rained quite a bit.

We didn’t fancy heading out in the rain, so just ate at the hotel again for dinner. This wasn’t as special as our lunch, although we did a better job of ordering.

The hotel was hosting a fancy dinner for a table of 20 in the central courtyard of the caravanserai. We quietly walked through to the staircase to the 2nd level where the rooms were located, and called it a night.

Istanbul, Türkiye

Another day, another plane. This part of the trip is rather plane-heavy, mostly cause of the return flight to Abu Simbel.

We’re on our way to Türkiye for a three week road trip. There’s not good connections from Cairo to Ankara (where we start our Türkiye road trip), so we have an overnight layover in Istanbul.

The Istanbul airport opened in 2019, and the surrounding hotel infrastructure has yet to catch up. We decided to stay at the Yotel in the airport, rather than try to get into the city.

So our journey today from Le Meridien Cairo Airport to Yotel Istanbul was walk-fly-walk :)

The EgyptAir flight to Istanbul was on another vintage 737. Our ears were popping due to our colds, as well as cause older jets don’t have good cabin pressure.

We lucked out with the immigration line in Istanbul - we must have hit a lull, it took us less than ten minutes to get through. After we retrieved our luggage, we had to visit a couple of Turkish Airlines counters to sort out our flight to Ankara tomorrow. Somehow our tickets showed us as on both the 11am and 1pm flights. They were super helpful, and got us straightened out for the 11am. I wasn’t concerned about getting to Ankara, as the Istanbul-Ankara route is as common as Toronto-Montreal, with flights every hour.

We then checked into the Yotel. We were super impressed with the whole setup. Check-in was quick and easy, the room was really well laid out, had fast wifi, outlets everywhere you’d need them. There was also no pamphlets nor promotional items cluttering up every available surface (my pet peeve in other hotels - I spend the first few minutes in a new hotel gathering all those up and sticking in a drawer).

The only downside with staying at the airport is that food is overpriced and average at best. We walked around both departures and arrivals looking at the dinner options. I like walking around airports when they’re empty like this - maybe it’s from growing up near Pearson.

We weren’t that hungry, so just split a couple fresh sandwiches and a salad. It tasted pretty good, and not too overpriced at 30 EUR.

We actually got in a lot of walking today - over 7.3km!

Cairo, Egypt

We had a free day in Cairo today. I had planned in the extra day in case any of delays on our journey to-and-from Abu Simbel. Plus it was our fourth hotel in four days, so it was nice to relax and spread out our stuff for a couple days.

I did have some museums suggested for the day, but we were both a bit under the weather with the cough/cold that it seems every second person has. So instead we just relaxed all day at the hotel.

We had a bunch of admin things to do anyways - catch up in my blog, wipe down all the desert dust from our suitcases and shoes, post hotel reviews, monthly banking, file government paperwork. Just an average day on vacation lol.

Some random observations

• Almost all my pics have been from my iPhone. Aside from the Acropolis, I’ve only posted four from my camera. My iPhone was capable of taking those four, it’s just that I had my camera in my hand at the time. I don’t carry my camera with me half the time now, but it could get the point where I don’t bring it on vacation at all.


• We’ve also noticed that hotel staff that try to help with our suitcases aren’t familiar at all with two-wheelers. Then we looked at other suitcases on conveyors and they’re almost all four-wheelers. Heather did considerable research at the time on two- vs four-wheels, and the two-wheels are more durable cause the wheels don’t stick out. Except if you don’t know how to wheel it around and end up dragging the fabric everywhere.


• I’ve been able to pay using Apple Pay almost everywhere. The only reason we’ve needed cash is for tips.

Overall not a very exciting day but we needed the down day.

Cairo, Egypt

We had another excellent meal at the New Abu Simbel Hotel. Breakfast was an omelette, cooked and served in a piping hot ceramic dish. Also freshly squeezed mango juice, cheeses, honey crepes, and fresh fruit. Yummy. This was the best chef we’ve had on the trip thus far.

Said goodbye to all the staff and posed in a few pics. Then we zipped off back to Aswan airport for our flight at 2:40pm. I wasn’t sure when I booked if we’d make the flight (there’s a late evening one too) but the very helpful hotel staff had said it was no problem when I was planning back in the summer.

We left at 9am and were at the airport by noon. It was a two-handed drive most of the way, with the wind storm still pretty strong. Sand blew across the road similar to a snow storm, with the occasional sand drift half way across the road. Visibility was poor, but the driver was very familiar with the road and we had no issues.

The Egyptair counter wasn’t yet open, so we grabbed seats in the terminal. The counters opened a couple hours before the flight, we checked in, went through domestic security (water okay, but had to take off our shoes which we hate cause you have to walk in socks).

The EgyptAir agent had said there was a restaurant in the departure area; but it was slim pickings. Had another less than satisfactory airport meal, and waited for our flight.

The flight schedule actually originates in Abu Simbel-Aswan-Cairo. I had read that the Abu Simbel-Aswan leg is often cancelled so we made the three hour drive to Aswan to pick up the flight. Sure enough, the Abu Simbel-Aswan leg was cancelled, likely due to the wind/sand. If I remember, it was also substantially cheaper this way.

We had to use a Cobus (a vintage 2700 model, as opposed to my favourite, the Cobus 3000). We got blasted with sandy wind walking on the tarmac, with us in our cooler weather clothes (it was about 21C, and high of only 19C in Cairo today). Oh well, I needed to launder these clothes anyways.

The plane itself was vintage too, in business class they still had cigarette trays in the armrests!

It took a while for our luggage to show up on the conveyor. We could see it was in Cairo so we weren’t worried.

Then we walked over to the Le Meridien and checked in. We were still full from the amazing meals at the New Abu Simbel, so just had some small bites in the club lounge for dinner.

Abu Simbel, Egypt

It was a well-executed departure from the Mövenpick - we checked out at 9:45am, got a golf cart to the dock, immediately caught the ferry across, and our driver met us about a minute later exactly at 10am. Just like I planned it :)

We settled in for the three-hour drive to Abu Simbel. Our driver was very familiar with the route, he knew where every pothole was and most of the personnel at various security checkpoints along the way.

Years ago (pre-covid) it was a dangerous drive from Aswan to Abu Simbel, and buses travelled in convoys leaving at 4am. It’s no longer dangerous, but there’s still a couple checkpoints.

We passed through mostly a desert landscape. We were upstream of the Aswan High Dam, driving around Lake Nasser. There was the occasional large cotton farm, and an industrial complex that our driver said was a cement factory.

Around half way, we started seeing dozens of buses heading the other way; these were day-trippers to Abu Simbel who left Aswan very early, around 4am. It’s the most common way to visit Abu Simbel, which makes for a long day. It also results in almost all the 2,000-3,000 daily visitors trying to see Abu Simbel at the same time, just after sunrise.

There were also a few trucks on the road who were heading north from Sudan.

We arrived at our hotel, the New Abu Simbel hotel, around 1pm. The owners and staff were Nubian, and the hotel’s design and decor all reflected the Nubian culture.

We were lucky with the weather - it was only a high of 29C today. The week before and after it was reaching up to 38C. There was a wind storm peaking around 2am tonight, so we’d probably get dusty.

The owner was really helpful with planning when I booked back over the summer. We confirmed the itinerary - lunch at 2pm, Abu Simbel around 3:30, boat cruise at 5pm, light and sound show at 7pm, dinner at 8pm. Later we cancelled the boat cruise part cause of the winds.

Lunch was amazing. It was a multiple course meal - soup, tomato salad, bread, chickpea salad, labneh, and then the main we had ordered of beef kofta and rice. Dessert was a honey cake with an Arabic coffee. Mmm good.

We got ourselves together for Abu Simbel, having to dig out our hot weather clothing for the first time on this trip. The wind was picking up, so it was at this point we decided to cancel the boat cruise part.

We got a ride to the ruins in a tuktuk (which on our receipt was called a toktok, but maybe just a transliteration). It’s a flatbed attached to the back of a 3-wheel ATV, with a small bench facing backwards to sit on. It was just a three minute ride.

Bought our tickets at the gate, 750 EGP each (about 20 CAD). It’s then a five minute walk from around the back of the hill containing the temples, for the first view of Abu Simbel!

There’s actually two monuments at Abu Simbel: the Great Temple of Ramesses II, and the Small Temple of Hathor and Nefertari (not to be confused with Nefertiti, another Queen of Ancient Egypt who also has a famous ruin in Luxor).

We walked towards the Great Temple. It was a blue sky for pics, however in the afternoon, the sun is behind the temples. There’s good pics and lighting once you get in the shadow of the temple.

There were maybe 20 other people at the ruins when we arrived, and half of them were just leaving. So we had the ruins pretty much to ourselves. I found myself sometimes waiting for another tourist to show up in my pics to provide scale. Woe is me.

The four statues outside the Great Temple are huge, over 20m tall. Inside, (and I didn’t realize there was an interior until we got here) are eight more statues about 10m tall. There’s a number of rooms going deeper into the temple, with bas reliefs on all surfaces. It’s pretty cool to see.

Next up was the Small Temple, about 100m away. This seemed not as impressive cause we just came from the Great Temple, but it is pretty cool too. The statues in front are about 10m tall. By comparison, the statue of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the GEM entrance is 11m tall, and it seemed huge at the time. I guess it’s all relative.

We took a bunch more pics of the exterior of both from all possible angles, as the sun dropped in the sky. The park closed at 5pm and sunset was at 6:04pm so we didn’t get full sunset colours.

I WhatsApp’d our hotel and they came by to pick us up in a tuktuk. We relaxed for an hour in our room, feeling pretty dusty from being outside this afternoon. The wind storm wasn’t too bad, just the occasional gust that blew up the sand.

We browsed through our pics, and then went back to Abu Simbel at 6:30pm for the sound-and-light show. There were maybe a half dozen bus tours there as well, who looked like they were booting it back to Aswan after. There was still some colour in the sky so I took some more pics.

The show started at 7pm and was a bit disappointing for us. It used the side of hill as a screen to present the history of the temples and the international effort to save them. It hardly featured the actual temples themselves :( Compared to say the Petra by Night performance which we really enjoyed and highlighted the Treasury, the Abu Simbel show just wasn’t our thing. Most other folks seemed to like though.

The show itself lasted about 40 minutes. The audio was in French (I guess based on the majority of attendees that night); there’s headphones for other languages, but our French is good enough to understand (especially Heather’s) so we just listened to the French.

After our hotel picked us up. I really liked the drive back, with the town coming to life in the cool evening, men sipping tea and families gathered in fluorescent-bathed shops.

Our dinner was ready when we got back (we had pre-ordered when we arrived at 1pm). It was another multiple course meal, everything amazing. The chef here knows his stuff. For my main I tried the tilapia two ways, grilled & fried. The tilapia is fished from Lake Nasser and was super fresh.

We also browsed their collection of Nubian souvenirs, and bought a camel skin drum head, painted with Nubian symbols. Not sure how we’ll get it home, that’s for later to figure out.

We got back to our room, showered to get the dust out, and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Aswan, Egypt

We came back to Egypt for a couple reasons: to see the new Grand Egypt Museum (GEM), and to see Abu Simbel. We decided to see GEM today before our late 10pm flight to Aswan, rather than Friday when we’re here for the full day, cause GEM is busier on the weekend (Fri-Sat).

We had the buffet breakfast at Le Meridien. Typically we prefer more boutique hotels, but every now and then we don’t mind the consistency of a business hotel.

The other guests here are a mix of tourists on package tours, business folks rerouted from the Gulf, and just a handful of independent tourists. We had a similar impression in 2019 too, there’s not many independent tourists.

Anyways, the hotel hosts were circulating around the breakfast tables, chatting with guests. We used the opportunity to ask about the best way to get to GEM (Uber), and nearest ATM (right in the lobby).

We had timed entry tickets to GEM at 11am, which I had purchased over the web. We grabbed an Uber and sped off to GEM, on a new-ish highway (it wasn’t here in 2019) for the whole distance. Took us about 40 minutes.

We were a few minutes early (10:55), and were able to enter the staging area, go through security and get to the entry gate proper. Here we had to line up until exactly 11am, when the scanners started allowing entry for the 11am ticket holders. My little 15L day pack was allowed in, as well as water bottles.

We scanned our tickets (most people just used the ticket from their phone, I had bothered to print ours out at home), and we were in!

The entrance to the museum is really cool, it’s a pyramid-shaped opening in the side. And that was just the start!

Once inside, the 11m tall statue of Pharaoh Ramesses II greets you. Most tour groups stop here for a spiel and it gets crowded. We kept walking to the Grand Stairs. This is also super impressive, with large statues and pillars and other antiquities on display.

We had visited the old museum in 2019, and hadn’t seen most of these artefacts. I suppose they just didn’t have the space to display them back then.

We wandered through the galleries, trying to avoid the groups tours, which wasn’t too hard.

We then went through the King Tutankhamen gallery. This was also amazing, with much more on display than the old museum.

The lighting was really well done throughout GEM, so as to not cause a glare, and to highlight hieroglyphics carved into the stone.

We spent over two hours in the galleries, and it didn’t feel like that at all. We were just browsing; you could easily spend a couple days here if you got into the details. Overall it’s an amazing museum, we were glad we made it here.

For lunch, we did the museum version of shortest lineup. (At work, if you go down to the food courts just after noon, there’s 15-20 minute lineups at most places, and if you’re short on time, you just get lunch from the place with the shortest lineup. Then if someone asks you what you had for lunch, you just answer ‘shortest lineup’). Anyways, we ate at Sandough’s which turned out to be really good.

After lunch we quickly toured through the Khufu Boats Museum. Then we caught an Uber back to the hotel.

Our flight to Aswan was at 10pm, and we had asked the hotel if we could get late checkout at 6pm, which they granted. So we were able to shower and pack up after visiting GEM.

We hung around the lobby area for a couple hours until 8pm, then walked over to the terminal (I’m liking this airport hotel thing!) We went through domestic security before checking our bags; we were allowed into bring water through. There’s supposedly a bunch of fast food places open 24x7 in the terminal, but I guess they’re all in international departures :(

So I got a Mr Noodles from a café for dinner, not terribly nutritious.

It’s only a 45 minute flight to Aswan. We got a shuttle bus from the tarmac to the terminal, and could feel the difference in temperature. It was about 20C, but it felt warm. We ditched our puffy jackets, at least for the next couple days.

It was just our plane load of passengers in an otherwise empty terminal at Aswan. Retrieved our bags, met with our driver (the agent handler also tagged along for the ride). 45 minutes later we were at the Mövenpick dock for the two-minute ferry ride to Elephantine Island. We were picked up in a golf cart to drive us up maybe 100m. So our transit here went walk-plane-car-boat-golf cart.

We had stayed at this same hotel in 2019, it’s the only midrange option in Aswan. It was showing its age back then, and they haven’t made any changes except to double the price. Oh well, we’re just here for the night.

All-in-all, today was a pretty good transit day, considering we started the day at GEM!

Cairo, Egypt

Today was a long transit day, flying from Tbilisi to Cairo via Istanbul. We flew on Turkish Airlines which has really good in-flight entertainment, both 2 1/2 hour flights went by quickly. I started watching the new Naked Gun but switched half way to the final Mission Impossible. Also watched the start of the original Terminator, in which the dystopian future is in 2029! Actually all three had the same plot, the hero prevents AI from taking over the world. Well, enough digression into movie reviews, back to travel.

We last flew through IST (Istanbul airport) a few times right after it opened in 2019. Since then, they’ve monetized their floor space, removing most of the public seating and replacing it with high end stores. It’s no longer a pleasant airport to spend a layover, four hours in our case.

After landing in Cairo right on schedule, it took us a while to get through immigration. Canadians do in fact need to buy a visa-on-arrival for 30 USD, counter to my research. It is a nice visa sticker though. Our luggage was already waiting for us on the conveyor, and there were no issues through customs.

We’re staying at Le Meridien Cairo Airport which has a walkway from the terminal. We are flying to Aswan and back, and will be using the airport four of the six days we’re in Egypt, so the airport hotel made more sense.

Turkish Airlines had a decent hot meal on both flights which covered us for lunch and dinner, so we just settled into our room for the night.

Tbilisi, Georgia

There was a full schedule of events today for the Patriarch’s funeral. It started with a Sunday service at Holy Trinity Cathedral at 9am, mourning bells at noon at all churches in the city, a procession to Sioni Cathedral around 2pm, and a burial ceremony at 4pm.

Sioni Cathedral was just 250m away from our hotel, so we were right in the heart of things. It reminded us of our trip to Mexico City where we could see the Inauguration ceremony from our hotel room balcony. From the breakfast café at our hotel here, we could see both Sioni in front of the hotel, and Holy Trinity across the river.

Tens of thousands of people flocked in from all around the country and abroad to pay their respects. The roads for the procession route and around Sioni were closed to traffic, so it was super quiet at our hotel, with the exception of the occasional police car megaphone.

Almost everything was shut down today. We had hoped to hit the laundromat, but yesterday the owner gave us a big crossed forearms to indicate he was closed today. Instead we just stayed in the hotel and watched the events on TV, just like the rest of the country. It was cool cause we could hear the bells and some religious incantations live, and then with a delay on TV.

There were still thousands of people lined up outside Holy Trinity Cathedral to file past the casket. Around 2pm or so, the procession started. We recognized parts of the route as we had just been there yesterday. We had also randomly stopped in at Sioni Cathedral on Friday - I think shortly after that it was closed to tourists for security reasons.

Eventually the procession reached Sioni. The service continued on into the late afternoon. Pedestrian traffic picked up outside our hotel, from folks dispersing from the procession to Sioni.

Later on we went out for dinner, at Tbileli Bar. They had a limited menu of home cooked food, which was excellent. I had chakapuli with lamb (a Georgian stew) and Heather tried lobio (a Georgian kidney bean stew served with cornbread). Both were hearty and hit the spot.

Tbilisi, Georgia

The sun was shining when we woke up. The city looked quite beautiful from the hotel’s breakfast café on the top floor. We got ourselves together and headed out to sightsee!

We walked randomly around the historic centre, there’s lots of grand old buildings. Took some pics of the Monument of St George in Liberty Square, the gold statue really bright in the sun. The almond trees were blossoming throughout the centre. Walked past the Clock Tower again.

The flower stalls were busy with Georgians buying flowers to honour the Patriarch, lying in state at Holy Trinity Cathedral. Almost everyone was dressed in black; we stood out with our otherwise somewhat neutral clothing.

We had lunch at Khinkali Bar No 1. Their khinkali was excellent, better than yesterday’s. As we were eating, a passing shower poured down. My phone still forecast sunny all day, so we hoped it would end soon. We went next door for a coffee and some Turkish treats, and waited out the rain. Finally it petered out, and we continued on our way to the Art Museum of Georgia.

The museum is home to paintings by Niko Pirosmani, one of the more revered Georgian artists. In particular I wanted to see Fisherman in a Red Shirt.

The middle floor contains Georgian paintings from the 20th century, and I found this the most interesting. However the museum lighting is terrible. The lights are positioned so you always get a reflective glare. We read some reviews after and it’s a very common complaint. (We had the same experience at museums in Yerevan).

On the way back to hotel we searched all the souvenir shops for a mini fisherman in a red shirt. We even stopped back into Meidan Bazar, we were shocked to find completely empty of tourists! We finally found a little fisherman, hopefully it will fit on the key shelf.

We got back to hotel and relaxed until dinner. We ate at Sofiko, another recommendation from the hotel. It was only a five minute walk, but with amazing views of the city. We had a yummy dinner, and then took a bunch of night pics on the way back.

Tbilisi, Georgia

We had a full night’s sleep, which surprised us as we had read lots about how historic Tbilisi is a big party scene, especially in weekends, with bass thumping until 3am (says grumpy old man, who years ago would have been at said clubs).

Later in the afternoon Heather read that Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia died on March 17. He was the patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church for the last 50 years. This would be the equivalent of the Pope dying while we were visiting Rome. Bars and nightclubs in Tbilisi are closed until Sunday as part of the national period of mourning, thus the lack of noise at night.

Anyways we were not aware of this as we went out in the drizzle to sightsee. We started with lunch at a nearby khinkali place which was excellent. Khinkalis are the Georgian version of dumplings and are ubiquitous here.

We walked over to Meidan Bazar, a small underground market. It’s designed to look like an old souq, and just for tourists. There’s not much space to walk through, we were lucky there were no tour groups at the time. It’s also a rather short market - less than 50m? We did buy a mini plastic khinkali for our key shelf. Some online guides suggest spending 1-2 hours here, but it only took us 10 minutes to browse.

Next we walked over to see the Clock Tower. This is famous for both being crooked and leaning, as well as the puppet that comes out of the window to clang the bell on the hour. It was a good rainy-day thing to do, as there was hardly anyone else there. We also by chance ended up there at 2:55 so only had to wait a few minutes for the puppet.

We walked down to the Kura River to walk across the Bridge of Peace, a landmark in the city. The tramway to Mother of Georgia is right beside the bridge, so we bought tickets (2 GEL, about 1 CAD, for a reloadable card, and 2 GEL each for a one-way ride on the tramway, cash only). There was no line up at all, we just walked right up and boarded the next car which we had to ourselves.

It’s a quick ride, about two minutes to the top. There’s nice views of the city on the ride up.

At the top we headed for the iconic Mother of Georgia monument. It’s a 20m tall statue overlooking the city. Took a pic, then found the staircase back down to the old city. The best views of the city are from this staircase, better than view from the top.

At the bottom there was a little café which rated highly on Google, so we stopped in for a dessert and coffee. It was a really cosy spot, with vinyl playing in the background.

We got back to our hotel and that’s when we read about the Patriach’s passing.

Our reception recommended kneina for dinner and made a reservation for us. Good thing too, as we got a prime table at a very busy restaurant. The food was excellent, more home style cooking than yesterday. The restaurant is in an old house which has been owned by the same family for several generations. The restaurateur was quite proud of its history and showed us artefacts throughout the restaurant after we ate.

We took a circuitous walk home cause we ate a bit too much, and had another quiet night’s sleep.

Tbilisi, Georgia

We had booked a private transfer from Yerevan to Tbilisi through the hotel. We’ve enjoyed the sightseeing + transfer combos, which we first did between the Baltic capitals. It’s good use of a transit day, plus we get to places that are otherwise a long day trip.

It’s five hours if you drive straight to Tbilisi; with our sightseeing we figure to get to our hotel in about nine hours.

We had the same driver who drove us to Goris. We left a few minutes after 9am under sunny skies, climbing towards Lake Sevan.

We were making good time until our driver tried to accelerate too quickly and did something to the car. The car worked fine at lower revs and speeds, it’s just when he tried to accelerate that it was wonky. I think the car runs on four cylinders for efficiency and only uses all six when needed and something sounded off on a cylinder.

Anyways, we arrived at Sevanavank (Sevana Monastery). It’s a spectacular setting with snow capped mountains in the background, surrounding Lake Sevan. It took us a few minutes to hike up the stairs, we were both winded at the top (possibly also due to the elevation at 1900m).

Took lots of pics. It’s not possible to enter the monastery; however it’s more the setting here that attracts the tourists. We walked up a little hill on a muddy path to get pics with sun in the right direction. In all we spent about 30 minutes here, a bit longer than I had expected.

We got back on the road. In Vanadzor, the only town of size along our trip, our driver stopped at a mechanic shop to have them look at the car. I was surprised that a) a mechanic was immediately available to look at the car and b) he had all the diagnostic tools for our vehicle make (Honda). The mechanic took out one of the fuel injectors, cleaned it and reinserted it. My earlier armchair analysis seemed accurate :) The mechanic was obviously confident about his fix cause he then replaced the engine cover without testing the engine.

We got back on the road, with our driver determined to make up for lost time.

We exited the highway and drove through the small town of Sarahart to get to the Sanahin Monastery Complex. It’s a UNESCO Heritage Site, and it’s amazing. It’s in an unrestored state, and we had each building to ourselves for the most part. My favourite room was the gavit, which was home to a couple pigeons. Every so often a pigeon would fly across the room from one pillar to another, the acoustics amplifying the sound of its wings flapping. It was super cool.

The Church of St. Amenaprkitch itself was also amazing, it’s still an active church.

Duly impressed, we got back on road. We had a quick stop at a convenience store where I bought some freshly made bread with a potato filling. This tided us over as we weren’t stopping for lunch.

Next up was Haghpat Monastery Complex, about 15km away. It’s actually part of the same UNESCO site as Sanahin.

Haghpat has some cool exterior pics, sitting in rolling hills above the valley. It’s in the same unrestored state as Sanahin. It was starting to feel colder, about 3C and a damp mist. Took another bunch of pics.

We also had Akhtala Monastery Fortress on our list for today, but we were getting out-monastery’d, and the access road was in poor condition. So we agreed with our driver to skip Akhtala and just head to Georgia.

The border crossing was really straightforward. We had to think about our previous land border crossing - it was in the Balkans in 2020!

First our driver stopped before the border to purchase auto and medical insurance for himself (I’m guessing a requirement for commercial drivers).

On the Armenia side, we walked through passport control to get an exit stamp while our driver drove through separately.

Then we took the bridge across the Debed River into Georgia. At the Georgian immigration, it was the same deal, we had to walk through, although this time with our luggage. Canadians don’t need a visa to enter Georgia; we just got a stamp and in we were! The customs folks just waved Heather through. I got caught up amidst some other people in immigration and put my luggage through the scanner for customs, although likely I could have just exited like Heather.

Another hour brought us into Tbilisi, a couple hours earlier than expected, about 5pm. Our driver had difficulty navigating the one-way streets in the historic centre, we finally asked him to drop us off about a 50m walk from our hotel.

We checked in and got a couple recommendations for dinner. We ate at Iasamani, a hip restaurant in a cool setting and good food too. We were lucky to get in as walk-ins. Cheese features prominently in Georgian food - I think every dish we ordered contained cheese, some more than others.

Overall a great transit day. The monasteries we saw earlier in the day were really cool, it’s worth coming to Armenia just to see them. There’s way more to see too. If you’re planning a trip and wondering where to go, I’d consider Armenia for sure.

Yerevan, Armenia

On longer trips we try to schedule some down time, today was one of those days. The only thing we had planned was a visit to the History Museum of Armenia.

The museum wasn’t quite as good as we had hoped. They do have the world’s oldest shoe (circa 3500 BC) and attendants who insist you follow the museum in a very specific order. But the history abruptly ends after the 19th century, with just a brief panel about the genocide, and nothing about independence from Russia.

We had lunch at the bakery a few doors down from the hotel, it was okay. Bought the mini stone monastery from Vernissage market. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon rejigging our itinerary to skip the southeast part of Turkey. Instead we’ll fly out to Sofia and Belgrade before rejoining our original itinerary in Malta. The new destinations were based on cheap direct flights on Air Serbia. The replanning took the rest of the afternoon.

We had dinner at the hotel. They were hosting some sort of games night, like a trivia night. So we had to sit in the piano lounge overlooking the dining hall. The games night featured dramatic countdown music, which gave me a headache after a while.

Yerevan, Armenia

We had a leisurely breakfast before starting our day. First up were a couple attractions south of the hotel, the Armenian Market, and Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral.

The Armenian Market was in the former GUM Market building. (Most capitals in former Soviet republics had a central GUM department store, which stands for Glavny Universalny Magazin / Main Universal Store). Anyways it’s a really colourful market. There’s lots of dried fruits of all colours, big piles of lavash a couple feet high, a cheese section and a meat market. A cheese vendor offered us some stracciatella cheese which was super fresh. We also sampled a couple dried fruits from different vendors.

We walked back to Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral. The sun was in the wrong direction for pics, so we decided to come back later in the afternoon (it’s only a 10 minute walk from the hotel). We checked out inside, it’s spartan but nice.

Onto the National Puppet Theatre! We had bought tickets a couple days ago for The Dog and the Cat, based on a poem by Hovhannes Toumanian. We were there a few minutes early and browsed the collection of puppets on display in the lobby.

There 200-seat theatre was filled with groups of school kids. The kids did a cheer before the show started, maybe a countdown? The seats folded to different heights for kids and adults which was cool. The house lights went down and the show started!

The show was in Armenian but we got the gist of the plot. (I guess no different than going to an opera in Latin). It was in two 20-minute halves with kitschy organ music. We enjoyed the show, looks like the kids did too.

After the show we walked down the pedestrian Northern Av, and had lunch at Sorriso Café. The weather was so nice we actually ate outside on the patio!

We then walked over to the Modern Art Museum which we had scouted out on Monday. Even just looking in from the ticket entrance, it looked like we’d like the art. Sure enough, we really enjoyed it. Our favourite museum in Yerevan.

It was around 4pm by now so we walked back to Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral. The pics looked way better with the sun in the right direction.

Last on our agenda was souvenir shopping in Vernissage Market. We were looking for three items for our key shelf - a mouthpiece from a duduk (a double-reed wind instrument unique to Armenia), a mini stone khachkar, and a mini monastery. Found the first two. The folks at the duduk stall were really helpful, asking if the reed was for a musician or a souvenir. It was way more expensive for a real one, so it’s good they asked. The last item, a mini monastery, we had seen while browsing, but by the time we went back they had packed up for the day. We’ll catch them tomorrow.

It was a pretty full day! We ate at the hotel again. I tried a trout baked in lavash, and Heather had a squash / chickpea soup. Both were excellent. We wondered why we bothered to try a different restaurant yesterday :)