Holy Mtskheta!

On Sunday we took a day trip out to Mtskheta, the unpronounceable ancient holy city about 20 km from Tbilisi. Founded in the 5th century BC, it is where Christianity was proclaimed as Georgia’s state religion in 337, and remains the headquarters of the Georgian Orthodox Church to this day. It is also a royal capital, the site of coronations and burials for most of Georgia’s kings until the end of the 19th century.

We hadn’t quite calculated the Sunday-ness of Sunday in advance, and subsequently found ourselves with some time to kill in the morning before mass ended in the city’s famous cathedral. We first walked up to the Samtavro Monastery, which has some fabulous royal tombs (photos sadly not permitted inside.) Outside, you could hear ethereal singing piped over a sound system. We were quite surprised when we went inside and found it was being produced live by about five nuns.

Still with some time to kill, we walked down to the river and enjoyed a glass of local wine with a lovely view of Jvari Monastery, our destination for later in the afternoon.

A street vineyard




Georgian reds by the river

Finally it was after 1 pm, so we were free to explore the 11th century Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. 

Legend has it that a Georgian Jew was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, bought his robe from a Roman soldier at Golgotha, and brought it back to Georgia. His sister, Sidonia, touched the robe and immediately died. As she still held it tightly in her grasp, the robe was buried along with her in what is now the cathedral. 

Worshippers praying at the spot where Christ’s robe (and Sidonia) are buried.

The cathedral is full of beautiful icons and frescoes, most of which are unfortunately damaged due to whitewashing carried out under Russian Imperial rule, ahead of a planned visit of Tsar Nicholas I. Nicholas never actually turned up, but the damage was done.

A 13th century fresco of the beasts of the apocalypse

The tomb of (I think) King George XII, last king of Georgia. I loved the cloth effect in the marble








The cathedral also houses a mini copy of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, signalling that, while the church in Jerusalem may be the holiest in all Christianity, Svetitskhoveli claims second place.

With obligatory headscarf





We caught a bride going in as we were coming out. I’m going to save this one in case I ever want to become a wedding photographer. I kind of imagined my veil doing something along these lines, but I ended up carrying it almost all the time through the grimy, wet streets of Brussels.

Post-cathedral, we negotiated a trip up to Jvari Monastery and on to Tbilisi with a taxi driver slash guy who was standing around on a street corner. More on this later, but Russian is so far pretty indispensable in Georgia. Which means it falls on me and my extremely poor Russian to do all the negotiating. After a lengthy conversation in which we established he would take us to Jvari, wait for us to take photos, then take us to Tbilisi, we were good to go. I knew there was going to be a catch somewhere though, which came when we pitched up on the outskirts of Tbilisi and were informed we had to take a metro the rest of the way home. Oh well, lucky the day had not been too strenuous, and we got to have a look at the Tbilisan metro system.

First the monastery though. They seem to like calling everything a ‘monastery’ in Georgia, even when it’s just a tiny church like this one. You don’t come to Jvari for the interior, however, you come for the fabulous view over Mtskheta. Jvari dates to the 6th century, beginning life as the site of a miracle-working cross erected by the female Saint Nino who converted one of the kings to Christianity. Nowadays it seems to mostly function as a place for Russian tourists to drape themselves in front of views of the city and rivers below.

View of Mtskheta, with Svetitskhoveli cathedral in the middle






Doing my best ‘Russian’ pose on the walls

Even with the aborted taxi ride and hanging about in the morning, we got back to Tbilisi around 4ish, so had time to relax and watch the fantastic Italian GP before a lovely dinner with even better Georgian rose wine.

On the way there, we walked through an entire neighbourhood which seemed to be both falling down and under construction.

Mother Georgia from a Tbilisi back alley



A burnt down church

Light renovations, should be done in three months

Statue of St George in Liberty Square

Cheese plate at the restaurant. Top right is Imreuli, a light brined curd cheese with a bit of chew to it. Top left and bottom right are smoked and unsmoked varieties of Sukhumi, a semi-soft cow’s milk cheese, also quite tasty. Bottom left is, confusingly enough, named Gouda (what are the odds?) 

The food, wine and service were delightful but the Gouda tasted as disturbing as it looks. It’s a traditional Georgian cheese fermented inside a buried sheep’s stomach, with the wool facing in to the cheese. This was originally designed as a way to preserve some food for hard times, but lord knows why they keep on with it nowadays. Saltier than the Dead Sea, and we keep getting served it wherever we go (at least we know what to look out for now). 

Midnight plane to Georgia

By the time we arrived at our hotel in Tbilisi, it was around 3 in the morning, Georgia time. Only 1 am Brussels time, but still, it had been a long day of travelling. A 3-hour flight to Kyiv, a couple of hours to change planes and then another 3 hours to Tbilisi. Funnily enough though, we were quite energised, so when the hotel guy suggested we go up straight away to check out the rooftop terrace, we took up the invitation for our first good look at the capital.

The Narikala Fortress overlooks the city

The new Bridge of Peace. I can see why it’s not a favourite with everyone, but I think saying it resembles a maxi pad, as some people apparently do, goes a bit far.

We didn’t want to waste too much of the next day in bed, so after a shortish sleep we were up in time for a 10 am breakfast at the hotel, which was a huge and delightful array of eggs, bread, cheese, fruit and something that looked like pilaf. We ate so well, we didn’t need any lunch! As usual when I visit a city, Day 1 was more or less reserved for walking around - we clocked up almost 12 kilometres. This was our main sightseeing day in Tbilisi though, so we fit in quite a lot of the main sights as well.

First up, we visited the Sioni Cathedral, a more-or-less 13th century building with pretty, mostly 19th century frescoes.

It’s definitely wedding season in Georgia - we’ve been unwitting guests at like 3 of them already.




We stopped at the Anchikhati Basilica (no photos allowed) before heading to the national museum. We only saw the ground floor, which houses golden treasures from Georgia’s early history and pre-history. The legend of the Golden Fleece was actually supposed to have taken place in Georgia, which has long had a reputation for its gold deposits. The museum offered several different explanations for the legend, one of which is a possible technique for dredging small particles of gold from the rivers by dipping a sheepskin in the water. Whatever the truth of it, there were some gorgeous objects on display, many of which wouldn’t look out of place if worn these days.

Stele of Daniel in the lion’s den. Georgia is one of the oldest countries to have Christianity as its state religion (after Armenia, I think).



A carving of an early Georgian king presenting the church he had built. Jules made me laugh way too hard by calling him monkey man.

I loved the way the fine arts museum, next door to the national museum, almost seemed see-through with its reflections of the sky.

A patriotic Georgian street

From the museum, we walked back downhill a bit to the river, where you can catch a funicular up to the fortress on the hill. It’s a pretty fun short ride which costs less than a euro.

The cable car plying its trade up the hill above Old Tbilisi

View from the top. Our new camera is a wee bit over-enthusiastic with the blurred background effect

The hill also hosts a statue of Mother Georgia. No disrespect, but the one in Kyiv is still #1. (I climbed 91 metres up inside it - this one is a mere 20.)

Selfie on the fortress walls




We were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel, so we chilled a bit on the roof terrace, watched the F1, and then headed out in the evening for some delicious khinkali dumplings. There is a special khinkali etiquette - you grab it by the ‘handle’ up top, bite into it a little to suck out the juices, and then eat most of the rest. Apparently, Georgians will laugh at you if you manage to spill any of the juices (luckily there were none scrutinising me, although Jules did a decent job) and eating the ‘handle’ is seen as a mortifying display of extreme financial distress. We had meat, potato and cheese flavoured varieties, they were delicious!