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.