Georgia: Magical Mestia

Mestia (1500 m.a.s.l) is the main village in the UNESCO Svaneti region in the High Caucasus, ~90 km south of the Russian border. Tourism has taken off in a big way. Who can resist the love child of San Gimignano (Italy) and Pokhara (Nepal)? Mestia, situated in a lush valley surrounded by snow peaks, dotted with dozens of medieval towers, is a rather atmospheric and scenic place. 

At this point of our trip, we were somewhat worn out. The first day we had a rather steep walk to the cross (2200 m.a.s.l.). It may just be the most epic vista we have ever hiked to, 360 degrees of snow capped peaks.  The second morning we had a short walk on the Transcaucasian Trail from Mestia. A number of people were starting on the 4-day hike to the village of Ushguli. That's all the hiking we were able to manage.

In the minibus on our way to Mestia.




From the minibus we see the first of many defensive tower clusters in these valleys.


The view from our guesthouse balcony was amazing. We could even see the Mestia Cross (6th below) way up against the sky. There was rain the rest of the day, so we spent a lot of time hanging our in our room and on the balcony. We did go out for veggies, eggs, and bread. The local bread ovens are very cool (4th below). The baker "sticks" the dough to the inside surface of the oven.












The walk up to the Mestia Cross was steep and always a great view just around the corner. We started from our guest house and soon were in the pastures headed up on the red-white trail.






After an hour the pastures were waaaaaay below and previously hidden-from-view mountains began to appear.








And soon we are taking a break on the raised platform behind the cross, with great views back down to Mestia and surrounds.






Then we left the platform and walked up to the next shelter where the double summits of Mount Ushba peaked out from the clouds for a few minutes.








The walk down was easy.






After dinner we headed out to see the lights on the towers.






The next day we walked out on the Transcaucasian Trail to the abandoned Soviet resort. There were some good views back to town.

Georgia: Feverish Batumi

From Trabzon, it's a scenic bus ride along the Black Sea coast to the Turkey-Georgia border at Sarp, except it was rainy for us. This is only our second land crossing of the trip and it seemed particularly bustling to us. We later figured out that a lot of the Georgians were doing their Sunday shopping in Turkey. Since Turkey is much more developed and has a much higher per capita GDP, that's like Mexicans crossing the border to do their grocery shopping in the US! 





Batumi is an old resort town on the Black Sea. The waterfront promenade, laid out in 1901, has been expanded over the years. The whole city has been expanding, moving from 3rd to 2nd most populated city in Georgia. There are many new buildings, some rather feverish, if not garish - Skopje would be jealous. The soon-to-open Marriot Hotel is however tall and elegant.



















John liked our room overlooking Batumi Port. I was enchanted by the Ali and Nino statue. The book Ali and Nino inspired me to come to the Caucasus, never mind the book didn't take place in Batumi - Ali and Nino were from Baku, Azerbaijan.













There are several Art Nouveau buildings in Batumi.