The best way to see some areas of Georgia is with a guided tour. My day trip to Vardzia and back was a long thirteen hours, but every moment was amazing.
First stop was at the Borjomi Historical Park. The mineral water found at Borjomi is the number one export in Georgia. Located 160kms from Tbilisi, with a population around 11,000 permanent residents, this once one the summer resort of the rich and powerful Russian aristocracy. Some buildings in town still display signs of Russian wealth and grandeur.
In 1810, the viceroy to the Royal Tsar in Georgia decided to recapture the town of Akhaltsikhe from the Ottomans. The army had to turn back before engaging the enemy due to some epidemic. On the way back, the troops stopped in the Borjomi Gorge Forest . They came across some warm springs bubbling from the earth. The taste amazed them but the relief provided to the soldier’s stomachs was even more surprising! News of the discovery soon spread. The story reached the viceroy who decided to take his sick daughter to the spring, in the hope of providing a miracle cure. It worked and she was healed!
He then built a summer residence here for his family and created various parks. The area was known as “the Pearl of the Caucasus.” Originally a privately owned park, Historical Park was opened to the general public when the Soviet Union occupied Georgia.
A bottling factory was constructed on the site. Visitors can taste this water today, straight from the tap located in the park. It was not to my liking. The warm water tasted and smelt like Sulphur. Surprisingly, the factory bottles more than one million bottles of water per day, 561,000 litres! Visitors can buy an empty five litre bottle from stalls near the entry, for around 2 lari each, and fill them for free in the park.
There are a lot of amusement park rides for children, seats for sitting and admiring the view as well as coffee shops and restaurants located along the path.
Signs advise to keep off the grass, so the only place to stroll along are the paved walkways. It is a popular park to visit in summer. Shady trees line the walkway, with several bridges over the bubbling river. A cable car can take visitors to the top of the mountain, a short trip, for an extra fee. It was not working on the day I was there. 4WD dune buggies line the street hoping to take people on tours up the forest clad mountains.
3 kilometres upstream are several mineral water swimming pools that you can swim in for a small five lari fee. They are a constant 27 degrees Celcius. People still flock here for the therapeutic benefits of the waters.
The scenery here is peaceful, and wandering around the paths enjoying the natural beauty is therapy in itself. Waterfalls cascade down the mountains and a statue between two of these waterfalls that empty into the stream is breathtaking.
Leaving the park and traversing into the countryside, our driver slowed for the cows that often took precedence on the road. Scattered single family farmlets abound amongst the bright green grassy pastures. By the roadside there will often be metallic crosses, their horizontal beam bend down at each end, to resemble the cross of grapevines that Saint Nino was given after a vision. Spaced along the river are small hydroelectric dams.
We stopped for a walk across the suspension bridge, over a rapid flowing river and gazed up at the Khertvisi fortress, built in the ninth century. The whole area here had many such fortresses in centuries gone by. Invaded by the Mongols in the fourteenth century, Persians in the 1st half of the sixteenth century, and Ottomans in the latter sixteenth century, the fortresses were a necessary barrier for Georgians to control their homeland. As you pass through these lands, the restored fortress is now a museum, but crumbling remnants of other fortresses are still visible, located on tops of hills and high peaks.
Lunch at Aspindza was one of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The floor to ceiling glass walls and doors allowed an almost uninterrupted 270-degree panorama of mountains and countryside to enjoy watching while eating our lunch.
Next door to the restaurant there is a four-story boutique hotel being constructed, with similar glass walls and incredible views. I could not imagine waking up to a better view than this.
It was hard to leave this impressive venue, but the best was yet to come. Located next to the Mtkvari River, the cave town of Vardzia once had over three thousand caves hidden inside the mountain, and historians estimate at least 10,000 people could have been living here at one time. It stretches for over half a kilometre, and there could be more caves still deep within the mountain. Built around the twelfth century, it was home to King George III (ruled from 1156 – death in 1184) and his daughter King Tamar (abt 1160 – 1213). King Tamar’s chambers can be accessed up some steep internal stairs. These are the largest rooms, fit for a king. There is with a sleeping area and altar carved into the rock, as well as a large room that would have been used for important guests. The arches in this room are more elaborately carved than most of the other rooms, they have carved lintels.
The rockface today has about 600 caves visible. Once covered, they have become visible due to two reasons. An earthquake caused a part of the rockface to fall down in 1283. During the Soviet Union occupation troops used the mountain as target practice for their tanks, destroying over two thirds of the caves.
Inside the complex is a church (The Church of the Assumption) that is still in use today. The only areas in the cave town that have frescos are inside the church and on the passage outside. In the whole of Georgia, there have only been found four frescos with a likeness of King Tamar. Three have had damage to their faces, but the one found in the church here is intact. Tamar is holding a replica of a church, and her father in front of here has nothing in his empty hands. It symbolises that we came into this life with nothing, and we leave with nothing.
Sadly, most of the frescos have a dark covering of ash both from candles and an accidental fire. Some of the other rooms in the complex have blackened ceilings where shepherds have sheltered over the centuries in the abandoned town.
Eight black monks still live in part of the cave complex and that area is out of bounds to visitors. They have their food, supplies and building material sent up on a cabled basket system. These are silent monks and they do not interact with visitors.
Remains of meeting halls, bakeries, food storage, water reservoirs, stores, nunneries, pharmacies, fifteen chapels and secret tunnels can be examined and wandered through. An audio guide is available at the site, but I enjoyed our escorted tour. The stone fire pits in the floor were used as warmth, cooking and also as a light source in these enclosed rooms. 185 clay wine jars (qvevris) have been found in the floor of the caves, showing how important wine was to the early inhabitants. Today, the black monks still tend vineyards growing near the river.
There is even a secret natural spring inside the town that still produces crystal clear water. It is referred to as the “Tears of King Tamar”, as the water pours (or cries) from inside the mountain.
The secret tunnels took an effort to climb up and down as none of them are evenly spaced apart. As I puffed my way up one hazardous tunnel, I couldn’t help but think how fit those medieval dwellers must have been, especially when they would only have had a light from a fire torch to lead the way. There are between fifteen to nineteen different levels in the cave town, and two escape secret tunnels take people from the top to the base of the mountain, where people could escape near the river in case of a successful invasion. Guard rails are placed in some of the areas where there are no longer outer walls, to make it safer. While walking along these paths, the other people in my group and I were imagining what it would have been like when the paths were fully inside the mountain. Definitely not suitable for anyone that is claustrophobic.
The caves are definitely impressive, but so is the view looking outwards from the caves. The mountains of Georgia are breathtakingly beautiful.
The trip back to Tbilisi takes around four hours. The time was spent imagining the footsteps that have trod the same places I visited today, and what their medieval lives would have been like.
Vardzia is one of three cave towns in Georgia that are available for the public to visit. The second, and oldest one is Uplistsikhe, and the third is the still operating monastery of David Gareja.
Happy Travels!
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