Please note that if you click on the pictures, they do enlarge and you can run through all of them.
Today was an awesome day in the mountains. I loved the nature, as they call it here in Georgia.
Vardzia was fascinating. These underground caves made in the 12th centuries as a place of refuge for Georgians to fleeing the Mongols. There 13 stories of caves. They were able to hold 50,000 people! The caves even had clay plumbing and chimneys. In 1283, there was an earthquake that exposed the caves. I wish I could repeat all of the history of these caves, but I was just in awe of being in something this cool and this old. My imagination ran wild with scenes from Lord of the Rings.
There a currently monks who live in these cave.
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| I will put a bad picture up, just to prove that I was there and that I did not pull the photos of the web. |
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Seats and a table.
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| A monk. |
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| A tunnel that went up five stories. |
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| Wine cellar. |
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| Our Guide. |
Afterwards we visited another set of caves with a church nestled in the cliffs of the cave. Hiking up to this was an adventure in and of itself and a little horrifying as one misstep would have spelled disaster. This was awesome.
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| Looking up at the church. |
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| Looking across at the church. |
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| Monks still live in the mountain and the proof is in the windows . |
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| An alter just before the church. |
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| The alter in the church. |
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| View from the top. |
Then we went to
Khertvisi which was a castle that started out as a walled city in 400-300 B.C. The walls witnessed Alexander the Great in Battle. Then it became a castle during the middle ages and was a part of the Silk Road.
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| Not the best picture, but the people in the picture show the size of the castle. |
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| Our awesome drive. Super nice, super courteous, and he drove us through snow and over boulders. |
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| For Whom the Bell Tolls |
