Thinking Allowed: Georgia on my mind

For awhile now we have listened to others regale us with tales of how wonderful it is to visit Georgia. It has always been on our minds to see for ourselves. Five years ago we booked a month in Georgia that got cancelled by 2020 viral pitfalls. This time around we were luckier and have gotten to not only plan on a visit but also actually get to visit the country. For two weeks, the girls and I traveled around with a friend and her son getting to know the different areas of Georgia. It is a diverse country ecologically with everything from tropical to alpine. Georgia is in an interesting (and sometimes unfortunate) position geographically, sandwiched between the muslim countries to the south and the christian orthodox to the north. Historically, Georgia has been attacked over and over and over again. They have fought gallantly and endlessly to preserve their right to autonomy - they have build hidden cities in mountains to protect themselves, the men's national garb includes loopholes and pockets for weapons and ammunition; the caucasus are very mighty (but still they did not deter Russian takeover).

Georgia is east of the middle east and yet they identify much more strongly with Europe - they are, after all, at the root of the term caucasian. Despite being absorbed into the region of Russia, Georgia has strongly maintained its national identity. Georgia has its own unique cuisine (with lots of vegetarian food!), its own very old method of wine production (wine production originated here), and its own unique alphabet. Still, though, we can see many links with its Russian past and the country is dotted with crumbling soviet architecture and mosaic.

Touring around Georgia has been a diverse experience. We have hopped from a hilly mountain city to a large Black Sea resort town to a castle town near green gorges and hidden cave to a former Soviet mineral spa town at the edge of the mountains to the vast, sheep dotted grasslands at the Azerbaijan border to hilly wine country to the high (and snowy!) Caucasus to a big happening city. It has been a rich couple of weeks both culturally and socially. Georgia was not always what we expected but it was always a fun and interesting adventure. This small post does not do justice to the multitude of experiences that made up our last two weeks. Now we have traded in our rental car for a couple of quieter weeks of getting to know Tbilisi.