We have done our last trip so no alarms today!! I was awake for 8:30 but Claire managed to sleep for about an hour longer. This must be what its like for other people who do ‘normal holidays.??? I just felt lazy to be honest.
The rest didnt last long though. We were soon walking up (of course ‘up) to the Holy Trinity cathedral which is the best religious place we have visited here. Lots of clunkers walking really slowly towards it as usual just to ruin your photos but I guess having a couple of clunkers in shot gives some scale to the size of the building.
With a walkway reminiscent of the Taj Mahal leading up to it, no pools for reflections though unfortunately.oh and inevitably some steps up to it, it is quite a sight. We walked over to one corner to shoot the building in the best light and the head of the clunkers stood up and just stood there in our way. Apparently is still illegal, even here. Damn.
go inside where theres a clunker convention going on in front of Claire. As shes waiting to take a picture, a trio of clunkers are photographing each otner looking miserable in front of Jesus. Now Im far from religious but having your picture taken looking like the world is about to end in front of a huge altar seems a bit wrong.
Anyway, stop moaning and get on with it! The building inside was quite stunning too with really high ceilings and all very well maintained and looked after. Well worth a visit and not up too steep of a hill. Free to get in too.
Tother day we were told of a graffiti tunnel and a bridge with photographs on. Today we found it by accident and it was worth the accident. Some of the graffiti was really good and the photography was on the walkway and were a series of images that had won awards. Some of the pictures were quite harrowing but it was really interesting. On the way back from the cathedral we walked on the otner side
We were heading by now to the Ethnographic Museum, yes the one we made it to on Monday in a taxi only to find it was closed. We were to take the cable car up this time, after lots of walking of course.
We discussed stopping for something to eat and that idea was hastened as the thunder, lightning and rain started. A place that we were too early for last week was open today so we sat outside under an umbrella. The food was okay and the waitress actually smiled a couple of times. Onwards and, yes, upwards. The road wasnt too steep, the rain was intermittent and the walk was quite long. We walked through the posh area where there was a Next, a Swavorski and even a Wedgwood shop. As with a lot of Tiblisi there was improvement work going on and it was quite hard to walk in some places. We finally made it to the lower cable car station though.
As usual the guy there spoke to me in Russian first, thinking I look like a Russian. He switched to English and told
us to wait ten minutes. We were confused as to how to check the balance on our travel cards even though the machine could be put into English. You click on transportation and it blathers on about everything but what you want to do. I was convinced we still had some money left from using another cable car last week and that turned out to be the case. You can share a card on cable cars but not on other transport, just to make it more confusing.
This cable car was 1 lari each, about 30p. It was quite old and five of us plus an operator were squeezed into a small car. It was quite cosy as we were pulled slowly up the hill and even cosier when the operator had to swap sides to open the opposite door from the door we went in. Well worth 30p to save the climb though.
At the top we were at Turtle Lake and Google maps was telling us to walk all the way around the lake first.. We just got on the road down to the museum and cut 12 minutes off the time. Does Google maps have
The museum was open, hooray! It was 20 lari each and I had a right laugh with the cashier. I thought Id never get away. Not really.
