Day 3: Tbilisi

Yesterday evening the weather turned quite sunny for a while and there was nice view of the sunset from our terrace.

Helen and I sat outside for a quick glass of wine and a jaffa cake, before catching the metro back into the centre of Tbilisi, where we had a Georgian meal. We caught a taxi back to the hotel from the Peace Bridge, which was all lit up at night.

Breakfast this morning was another feast, but a different feast to yesterday. We had some sort of burgers, a bowl of mashed potato and waffles, along with boiled eggs.

It had rained and been quite stormy overnight, and it was still feeling slightly damp with a grey sky in the morning.

We decided to go and see the Metekhi church, which we'd seen from above during our cable car ride yesterday. The odd piece of concrete in front of it in the picture below is a fragment from the Berlin Wall!

The church itself is very beautiful, perched on a platform above the river.

From here we had some great views across Tbilisi. Down towards the Peace Bridge...

...up towards the Mtatsminda Park, which was next on our itinerary...

...and across towards the botanical gardens and Mother of Georgia statue where we were yesterday.

We could even see the cable car we'd been on yesterday making its way across the river.

Because it was an Orthodox church, we had to cover our heads again.

Another outing for my Qatar hijab.

The inside of the church was very pretty with lots of icons, but it wasn't permitted to take photos.

It was set in some gardens, which were pleasant to walk around.

From here we made our way towards the cable car station for Mtatsminda, the big hill with a TV tower that we'd seen in the distance.

We had a brief stop for coffee at a nearby McDonalds, then bought tickets for the cable car. The bottom station was next to this very old-looking Georgian house with a wooden balcony.

We walked through a courtyard...

...and then up an amazing ramp which spiralled upwards around the edges of the station building.

Then we off up in the cable car...

...with some great views out over Tbilisi.

The views were even better once we made it to the viewing platform at the top of the hill; we could see how big Tbilisi is.

We attempted to take a selfie with the view, though without the selfie stick it was a bit of a challenge.

The top of the hill is home to Mtatsminda Park, an old Soviet amusement park.

I'm sure it gets busy up there on weekends and holidays, but today it was pretty peaceful and we were able to wander around under the trees.

We walked to a place called Kazbegi viewpoint.

If you look carefully in the distance you can see the beginning of snowy mountains; that's where we're ultimately going to tomorrow.

It was close to lunch by this point so we went into a cafe, that looks a bit strange from the outside, but was nicer inside.

Helen and I tried a glass of pomegranate wine, which was unusual but I actually really enjoyed.

For lunch we shared some khachapuri, the famous Georgian cheesy bread.

After lunch we explored more of the amusement park. I was happy to see these upside down and crooked houses, which I'd seen pictures of on the internet when researching the trip.

There was all sorts in the amusement park. We passed a log flume...

...a ghost house...

...and a huge rollercoaster.

We looped around the park...

...passing some old funicular cars...

...and getting a glimpse of the park's huge Ferris wheel in the distance.

The Ferris wheel was enormous. Unfortunately it wasn't operating today, otherwise I think the views from it would have been amazing.

There was a terrace area outside the wheel with some giant sun loungers and views back down towards the town.

Once we'd completed a full loop of the park, we caught a funicular back down the hill towards central Tbilisi. On the way back to the metro station we passed the Georgian Parliament.