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| King David the Builder, in Old Town Tbilisi |
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| Mother Georgia |
Dear readers, thanks for missing me. Forgive my tardiness in posting my blog this past month. I had a wonderful vacation when my daughter, son, and cousin visited, followed by some busy times at work. It is all good. So let's summarize 3 weeks with visitors. Our first week was primarily in Georgia - from East to west, the capitol Tbilisi to the mountains of Racha.
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| Sameba, Tbilisi's Cathedral finished in 2004 with Amanda, Matt and Mariann |
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| Views of Tbilisi from Narikali fortress, dating from 4th century |
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| Tbilisi Metro |
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| Matt wanted to shop for shoes |
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| Souvenir shopping |
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| Sighnaghi - The city of Love, and heart of Georgian wine country |
Bodbe - Where St. Nino, the founder of Christianity in Georgia, is buried. It's on the way to Sighnaghi.
Next we visited my great host family from training, the Bugadze's family, from Khashuri. They escorted us around Borjomi, Surami, and Kutaisi. Great time to be with them all. I love these people and so glad they could all meet.
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| Gocha, Tomriko, Mari, Mariann, Matt and Amanda |
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| Hiking to Bottomless lake, Racha |
Next we headed for the mountains, to the Racha region. We hiked to Bottomless Lake, in Racha, one of the 4 beautiful mountain regions in northern Georgia, the upper Caucasus. The lower Caucasus cover the south side of Georgia. It was a 10 km and 5300 foot elevation gain. And not much of a trail. 7 hours up, and 5 hours down. My lovely "host sister", Mari, joined us and we all did great!
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| Look at this rock formation! |
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| The clouds rolled out, and then back in by the time we were done climbing. |
Of course, time in Koda was a special occassion, for my neighbors as well as my family.
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| Supra at Lali's - wonderful! |
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| Koda Community Education Center and the Dixons |
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| Leaving Tbilisi . Next up... Istanbul! |
