Where in the world is Gwannel Sandiego?: Spelunking with monks

Monday mostly consisted of driving some 270km from Tbilisi to our guesthouse near Vardzia, an ancient cave monastery in southern Georgia, located less than 20 km (over some big mountains) from the Turkish border, and not too far from the Armenian border either. Although for most of the way the roads weren’t too bad, it was still pretty slow going. With breaks, it took us more than 6 hours to cover it. Although you’re less likely to encounter stray cows on the highway that made up most of the way, you’re practically guaranteed to meet many Georgians who view the centre of the road as a secret third passing lane. Their technique often involves following as close as possible to the back left of the car in front, in order to bully it over to the side of the road a bit, and then they merrily proceed in the assumption that anyone coming the other way will also make space. For most of the way, the passing scenery was actually quite dull, until we turned off the main cross-country highway and got into some more dramatic terrain on the way south.

About as bad as the road got, on the way down to Vardzia

Apart from the alphabet, this is kind of how I imagine a carwash in Georgia the state might look

Khertvisi Fortress

We finally arrived at our destination, a rural guesthouse in Nakalakevi, not far from Georgia. Here, again, we encountered some language difficulties. My Russian is just about good (or bad) enough to follow the general topic of a basic conversation, but often not enough to pull the threads together in a way that makes sense. We were greeted by the man of the house, who led us and our suitcases across the courtyard to speak to his wife, who told us a big group was coming in the next day for agritourism purposes - homemade milk, wine, fruit etc. Okay, got the drift. Then she asked if we wanted dinner - my attempts to say we wanted a ‘light’ dinner failed (I checked later and I did use the right word, but I think I mangled the pronunciation), so I fell back on asking for a small dinner. Then we, with our suitcases, were led back towards the car for a confusing spiel about the old guesthouse down the hill. It took quite some time before I was able to put two and two together and figure out that that is where we would be sleeping, displaced by the large group due to arrive the next day. Even then, I wasn’t sure whether we were expected to schlep back up to the main guesthouse (thankfully not, given the state of the road between the two). The teenage daughter, who spoke a little English, although not to great effect when all this conversation was going on, was bundled into our car to accompany us down to the other guest house. The poor thing later had to carry our dinner down the hill in buckets. I’m not sure whether school was over for the day by the time we arrived, or hadn’t started yet. Either way, it didn’t look like the most fun ever.

You shall not pass! Cows guarding the bridge to the ‘old’ guesthouse

A very small-scale trout farming operation at our rural retreat

The next day it was off to Vardzia, the cave monastery that had brought us to this isolated corner of Georgia in the first place. It was mostly constructed during the Golden Age of Georgia in the twelfth century, including under the rule of the female King (aka Queen) Tamar. The complex is made up of 119 dwellings, with 407 rooms arranged on between eight and nineteen tiers carved from the cliff face. We spent about 2 hours there and definitely did not see more than a fraction of this, but there is only so long you can look at mostly unremarkable holes in a cliff. Plus, if you think a cave visit would be cool, temperature wise, think again. Most of the time was spent on the edge of the south-facing cliff in about 30 degree sunshine, so with that and the 53 flights of steps we climbed (thanks, pedometer), we were pretty tired by the end of it.

If that sounds dismissive, it doesn’t reflect the site as a whole. While the caves themselves are mostly nondescript, the overall site is beautiful and interesting, with commanding views of the valley below and some highlights such as the Church of the Dormition, which can be fairly precisely dated at between 1184 and 1186, thanks to attributes of the frescoes of its royal patrons.

We had read online that there is not much information on the site, which is true, and that the audio guide is longwinded and rambling, which is also true. It was useful for giving the basic gist of what you were looking at, but otherwise was pretty much the worst, with a penchant for confusing compass directions and giving the exact measurements of everything in sight e.g. ‘The fresco on the upper level of the southern slope of the western wall of the chapel measures 10 metres by 5 metres, while the fresco on the lower level is 2 by 8 metres.’ About the only interesting bit was when it was describing how the access tunnels had a system where you could roll boulders in to protect the complex against invaders, but I was too scared to go in that bit due to the roll call of measurements that made it clear you would have to crawl/stoop/shuffle through narrow rock tunnels to see it.

From afar, Vardzia looks much like that Georgian cheese we had the other day.

Jules encounters some difficulties with his audio guide when attempting a suave pose

Inside the Church of the Dormition

Queen Tamar and her father Giorgi III. This fresco can be dated because she is depicted as an unmarried woman and the text wishes her a long life, but does not do the same for her father, implying it dates to the short window between his death and her marriage