Day 4: Tbilisi to Stepantsminda

After I'd finished the blog last night we went out for a final dinner in Tbilisi, taking the metro into the centre again. We were just on time to catch the sunset.

As we walked towards the restaurant we wanted to eat at, we passed the church we'd visited earlier in the morning.

From this angle it was really visible how the church is perched on the cliffs above the river.

The restaurant turned out to be lovely and we had so much food! Mom and Helen shared pots of beans and chicken...

..while Dad and I both opted for a fried chicken dish with Georgian sauces.

As we were waiting for a taxi to take us back to our rooms after the meal, we saw the church again; this time lit up at night.

We woke up on Tuesday morning for our final breakfast feast in Tbilisi.

We had an exciting journey ahead of us today as we left the Georgian capital behind and headed towards our next destination of Stepantsminda. Stepantsminda is located in the northeast of Georgia, about 12 kilometres from the border with Russia. It's in the Caucasus mountains and so it promised to be a very scenic drive.

We'd booked a driver for the day using the Georgian website Gotrip, which enables you to book private transfers between different parts of the country. We'd paid around £100 in total for an entire day of driving, including as many stops as we wanted. It seemed like very good value to effectively have a private tour for four people for that price. The driver had already been in touch with me to agree a pick-up location, so after breakfast we packed up our final things, checked out of the hotel and went to meet him.

Our first stop, after about 40 minutes of driving, was the town of Mtskheta. Still not 100% sure how you pronounce it(!), but it's one of the oldest continually inhabited towns in the world, with some significant historical monuments. We wanted to see the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. We walked towards it from the car park, through a series of little lanes lined with souvenir stalls.

On the hill above the town in the distance we could see the Jvari monastery, which was going to be our next stop.

We found the cathedral without any difficulties.

Unfortunately, it turned out that we couldn't get inside it.

It was Georgian Independence Day today and there were lots of police and soldiers everywhere. They had closed the cathedral off, presumably for some sort of important service. So ultimately we were only able to admire it from the outside.

We did find a cool model of the cathedral outside.

And Mtskheta itself was a really beautiful place.

I loved the old wooden buildings with mountains behind them.

While we were walking around, I seized the opportunity to try something I'd been curious about for a few days: wine ice-cream.

It was actually really good! Then we set off back towards the car park, from where we could just get a glimpse of the Jvari monastery high on the hill above us again.

Our driver took us along a winding road up towards the church.

When we got out of the car at the top, the views were great but it was incredibly windy.

There was a short climb upwards to see the church.

From the platform outside it we could see the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers.

The monastery dates from the sixth century. We put our scarves on and went inside briefly, though it was very busy with people attending a service.

I really enjoyed strolling around outside it...

...and admiring the views of the surrounding countryside.

Helen and I attempted a selfie, but we were rather hampered by the strong wind.

After the church it was back in the car for another short journey towards a scenic viewpoint, overlooking the Zhinvali reservoir.

The benefit of the wind blowing so strongly was that we could get good pictures of the Georgian flags that adorned the railings.

It was a great spot to take photos  

Of course, we attempted selfies. My first attempt completely missed the view...

...but subsequent attempts were more successful.

I assumed the reservoir had been here for a long time, but a photo showed us what the valley had looked like in 1961 before it was flooded and dammed.

Around ten minutes down the road from the reservoir we found our next stop: the Ananuri fortress.

Within the fortress walls there are beautiful church buildings.

This was the bigger church; it had a really ornate exterior.

We were able to walk a short circuit around the churches, alongside the old walls of the fortress.

Our lunch stop was a bit further on, near a town called Pasanauri. We sat on a terrace, overlooking a river with rather fast rapids.

This part of Georgia is famous for its khinkali dumplings, so obviously we had to try them. Today we ordered a mixture of meat, potato and cheese fillings to share. They were delicious!

After Pasanauri, the road began to lead more steeply uphill. We were driving on the Georgian Military Road, a route which runs between Tbilisi and Vladikavkaz in Russia and which was traditionally used by invaders.

By around 4pm we had reached a place called Gudauri, which is home to something called the Russia-Georgia Friendship Monument.

This rather unusual structure was built in 1983 to celebrate the bicentenary of the Treaty of Georgievsk, which established this part of Georgia as a protectorate of Russia.

The monument features a mural, which depicts scenes from Georgian and Russian history.

More impressive than the monument are the views.

It was fantastic to see so much snow on the mountains in particular.

And it definitely felt considerably colder up here than it had down in Tbilisi.

It was a very busy place with lots of tour groups stopping, but it still a really gorgeous location.

After the monument we had a final short drive towards our hotel. On the way we came across something you wouldn't expect in the mountains; a traffic jam of lorries.

The military road is an important transport route and we were being passed by a series of trucks from Russia, Armenia and Turkey. It seemed like one of them had broken down, causing a significant blockage.

The hotel where we're spending the next two nights is situated in the village of Stepantsminda. Helen and I have got a twin room...

...with a balcony from where we can see the snowy mountains.

The hotel also has a stunning terrace, where we were able to sit and have coffee after our journey.

It's quite a posh hotel, so the price of food and drinks is definitely higher than what we've been paying in Tbilisi, but we definitely can't complain about the views