Georgia tour - Tbilisi 1/7

It is our first time to visit a middle Asia country, Georgia, decided to make life easy by joining a tour.

This is an area with very ancient history, I am fascinated by mountain scenery, old buildings and their 8000 years wine making history.

We arrived the capital Tbilisi two days before the tour starts to enjoy having more time to wander around.

My favourite is the long walk up Betlemi street stairs up to the top of the hill. What a beautiful way to see the old Persian style buildings, all with big balconies and growing grape, fig or pomegranate wherever possible. From the top is a good panorama view of the city, all the churches dotted around and those shiny rounded edges modern buildings.

There is an ancient small church, with fantastic murals.

Along the river, the thermal baths built during the Ottoman era was impressive.

From there, one gets a clear view of the fortress on top, accessible by funicular, and a good view of Metekhi Church right at the edge of the cliff next to the river.

Both Metekhi Church and Sioni cathedral were started in 5th century as small buildings and gradually enlarged and extended, the current structures are from the 12 century.

While the inside walls of Metekhi Church is plain after the communist era, Sioni cathedral maintained the colourful murals.

Across the river via the super modern wavy roofed Bridge of Peace, we walked up to Sachino Palace Queen Darejan balcony, the famous round blue balcony. A romantic design with a panoramic view of the city that spreads a long way, to the distant mountains.

 

 

 古都風貌

在格魯吉亞首都Tbilisi 閒逛了兩天，有山有河有很多教堂的地方，古城的建築沿山而上，有迂迴漫長石級連接。

拾級而上，容易近距離欣賞波斯時代舊建築物，永遠有大露台，木或鐵都有細緻紋理，有隨歲月、需要而加建的部份，可惜破爛殘舊的多，復修翻新完好的尚少。

亦有不少充滿曲線、玻璃幕牆的現代建築，亦悅目。

在山上往下看，大約相差三百幾年的建築物，一個殘破一個閃耀兩個極端，暫時在共存。