My stay in Tbilisi
My trip to Georgia started one a high positive note while it is recommends to visit Georgia between April and October, I enjoyed that week in Tbilisi during the winter.
The first day, I was invited at the opera the first day, my friend a young energetic Georgian of Russian root had tickets from her cousin working there. The Tbilisi Zakaria Paliashvili Opera and Ballet is a 150 years old building rich with history, you can feel it when you walk in the hall of that theatre and when you look at the collection of photos they have. The spectacle of that day was a ballet called Nutcrackrer based on the story ‘nutcracker’ by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann with musics by Piotr Ilitsch Tschaikowski.
I loved the spectacle in my hometown of Brussels I don’t go to such spectacle very often, it was a spectacle designed for the children , the opera hall was packed with kids, great atmosphere. The spectacle was in 2 acts we had a small pause in between where I visited a room with pictures of past spectacles. After the spectacle we went to a restaurant , we went there in a small crowed bus, I was not used to the bus I usually avoid bus as much as I can in Brussels at the restaurant I had the occasion to eat my very first Khachapuri or Georgian pizza as they told me, but I think it taste better than a pizza.
The second day started by a walk with my friend in the Vake park , it is a peaceful despite the many people in the park there is a not a lot of noise, I enjoyedmy visit there; we finished the visit of the park by a walk at a football stadium that was at one of the end of the park.
In the end of the afternoon, we went with a group of friends at Mtatsminda church of Saint Father David, I was in an old Lada car with my newfound friends, we nicknamed the car ‘The soviet car’. My friends were driving pretty fast I asked about the speed limit in the country , they told me to never mind they have friends in the police we risk nothing.
At the church site there were a small cemetery with tombstones of famous Georgian writers, my Christian orthodox friends and I entered the church , upon entering the church my friends bought some candles and put them on an altar inside the church , I heard that the money is used for church restoration.
When we finished the visit we headed to a near by site the Mtatsminda park where we had a fantastic view of Tbilisi , the park site is undergoing some improvement work, they plan to had a restaurant among other things, when I was there, it was pretty deserted and abandoned , especially the restaurant construction site the structure is so huge that you can see it from many areas of Tbilisi in fact the Mtatsminda park is on a hill.
The night was spend at jazz bar in the well know street of Perovskaya where there is a lot of night life there. That night was the night of the Old new year a few Russians where there in the bar, we said happy new years to them, it was rather quiet I expected something bigger but only a few people were celebrating.
The next day started by a visit at the Tbilisi zoo, the last time I was in a zoo was when I was 9 or may be 10 years old a very long time ago indeed. The price for the zoo is very small , my friend paid for me but I think it was less than 2 euro, the zoo is rather small. They have zebra, camels, tigers, bear, elephants, chimps , hyppo and many other animals. There are also some attraction for the children in fact in Tbilisi they have a lot of attractions for the children in their parks. I haven’t seen such things in Belgium and Spain where I spend most of my time.
After the zoo, we took a taxi (the Georgian bus is very fine but we wait too long at the bus stop in that winter weather that I decided to take a taxi)We went to a specialised shop called Slenders , it is a Latvia brand of handmade ‘high quality’ soap , It was opportunity to buy some gifts for my mother and cousin.
The girl working at the shop which spoke an excellent Spanish guided me to buy some of the soaps , she gave me so much explanations that I cant tell you what flavor of soaps I bought exactly I took the honey soap for me and some blue one, the soaps I bought for my family have flowers smell, that’s all I can say. The Slenders shop is in a gallery or mall of relatively expensive shops , relatively expensive compared to the salary of the population, the girls at the shop made 250 lari a month ( a little bit more than 110 euro) , I paid 20 euro for the 6 soaps I bought for me it is very cheap but for the locale I guess it is a kind of luxury, we spent large part of the afternoon in a tea salon. After the tea salon we went to the old Tbilisi it was nice to walk in these streets but it could have been nicer with a warm weather at the end of the afternoon, It was colder, we ate nice dishes at restaurant in that place, we ate Kahbabi and Khinkali (I will probably have to write a standalone review of Georgian dishes),I took my first Georgian beer in that restaurant.
The next day, we went to the old Tbilisi I like that special I hope to see it again with warmer climate, walking long time in the streets during the winter is not something I recommend. We had a visit at the grandiose Sameda that church site is extremely clean, the cleanest place in the whole city. The building is tall and very old but it sound like brand new , I guess this building receive the best maintenance.
At night I went with the guys at the Abanotubani bath (price 30 Lari), we had a bath and a massage, one of my friend Sandro spoke a lot, he had so much to tell about the country, the cultures , the histories and Dynamo Tbilisi (their best football team, UEFA champion in 1981, Sandro has hope that they will be champion again), he regretted that I only stay one week , more time is required to really learn about the country.
The next day, was a rather a easy and quiet day, I spent most of my time at my friend house in the end of the afternoon; We went to a restaurant, then a tea house then a bar , well that was the quietest day of the whole week.I even had a nice nap in the afternoon that day.
The last day was spend in the town of Mtskheta near Tbilisi , anyone who visit Tbilisi should have a visit there, this the typical tourist site we had fantastic views from the hills. We started by a church visit , the originality here was that the church was surrounded by a wall to protect against invaders, it was one of the oldest church I visited there, after that visit one of my friend showed me the football club where he is a coach in that town , we went to one of the hill where there is another old church, after our visit we went to a restaurant to eat….
I drunk a little bit too much vodka , their vodka is so strong or may be it is me that doesn’t support it very well, I was supposed to talk at a radio show that evening but I couldn’t, I went to sleep until 3 A.M then I had to pack to take my plane at 4 A.M . That was the end of excellent travel may be the best since 2002.
Price:
Air ticket : Brussels (Belgium) to Tbilisi - 686 euro with Turkish Airlines
Hotel (paid) 50 dollars/ night.
November 8th, 2007 22:37
Hi there…I Googled for hotel opera madrid, but found your page about My stay in Tbilisi…and have to say thanks. nice read.