We said goodbye to the family in London, as they had to catch an early flight home, while we spent our last morning there walking around and picking up some hiking gear for Georgia. We flew five hours to Kutaisi, Georgia, landing a bit after midnight on Friday. Despite our late arrival, we woke up early to spend a full day exploring Kutaisi, the capital of the Kingdom of Georgia in the Middle Ages and now the country’s 3rd largest city, with about 150,000 people. The Georgian parliament moved to Kutaisi in 2012. We walked to the main square and had breakfast at Baraqa, where we tried one of Georgia’s most famous dishes: khachapuri. Khachapuri is a fresh baked bread stuffed or covered with sulguni or imeruli, types of fresh, savory cheeses. We had the khachapuri adjaruli, which includes an egg yolk to mix with the sulguni cheese, making a dipping sauce. In an effort to balance our diet, we picked up some fresh fruit at the market before catching the marshrutka (shared van) to Gelati Monastery. Founded in 1106 and beautifully painted in the 16th century, Gelati Monastery was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. Standing remote atop a small mountain, the monastery’s painted ceilings, mosaic iconography, and expansive views make it an incredible place to visit. We continued again via marshrutka to the Motsameta Monastery, built in the 11th century and beautifully set on a cliff’s edge above the Tskhaltsitela River. It, too, had beautiful artwork, impressive for such a seemingly remote location. We rode back to Kutaisi to pick up some snacks ahead of our 4-day trek from Mestia to Ushguli in the Caucasus Mountains, in the Svaneti region near the Russian border. Dinner was at Bar-Restaurant Palaty, where we had some more delicious traditional Georgian dishes: khachapuri imeruli (bread stuffed with fresh cheese), eggplant slices with walnut paste, beans in the pot (deliciously seasoned), chicken shashlik skewers, and pumpkin with honey and walnuts for dessert. We also enjoyed the local red wine. It is believed that wine production was invented in Georgia about 8,000 years ago; the traditional winemaking method in clay jars is deeply entwined with the country’s culture. All dishes were excellent and distinctive, different from anything we’d had before.
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September 2018
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