I’m back. After a long run of recuperation following the roughest patch of travel I’ve experienced in nearly six years, I’m catching up starting today with a post from my …
The City of Athens sprawls like this in every direction from the Lycabettus Hill, perhaps the best viewing platform in the city at about a thousand feet. Only about a 30-minute walk from my house.
I’m breaking in a new pair of hiking boots so walking has been my principal mode of transportation of late. But that’s OK since walking through unfamilar cityscapes is one of my favorite travel pastimes.
So far so good with my new bargain boots.
I’ve been in Athens now for a week. You’ve probably seen my first post on the Acropolis; now I’ve got some other photos taken on various other walks, starting with the Wednesday open market on Kavlou Street, in the Gizi neighborhood of the city, where I live.
The futuristic border crossing from Sarpi, Georgia, to Hopa, Turkey, designed by George Jetson. The photo was taken through a window, accounting for the fluorescent light reflections and dirt smudge UFO, upper left in the sky. But it was the best view of the building that I had access to and I like the effects, complementing the surreal architectural style, more like an aquatic diving tower than a border crossing. Gotta love Georgia!
I was sailing right through the border checks until the Turkish guy asked about my visa.
I said I had been recently to Turkey and thought I still had one.
Not every grand idea is a good one. Not even one with free liquor! Take the Chacha Tower in Batumi, Georgia, for example, sitting abandoned in an area known as …
The trees of Georgia’s Sabaduri Forest spread a red ochre autumn carpet over its floor, awaiting a long winter’s slumber.
Over the weekend I went with a friend and a local ex-pat group from Tbilisi on a trip that included hiking among the fall colors of the Sabaduri Forest National Park and a visit to a nearby sanctuary for Georgian Brown Bears.
I took this photo the first time I visited Anchiskhati Basilica one weekday morning and was so intrigued with the interior light that I vowed to return for a 9 a.m. mass to catch that gorgeous ray of sunlight again.
I may be a heathen but I love the traditional ceremonies, rituals, art and especially the music of historic churches.
Gori, a Georgian city of about 45,000 people, capital of the Shida Katli district of Georgia, is probably best known for being the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953.
Statue of Joseph Stalin outside the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia
Gori was important militarily as far back as the middle ages, and the remains of the 7th-century A.D. Gori fortress on a prominent hilltop in the city is a popular tourist attraction. Yet the city’s most well-known attraction is undoubtedly the Stalin Museum.
Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra conductor David Mukeria takes the stage for Friday’s performance.
“Without music, life would be a mistake,” said German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
I surely agree. A life-long love of music has played an important part in my post-retirement travel life, providing many new, wonderful opportunities to hear and see live musical performances throughout the world that I would never have had without it.
Many of my most memorable travel experiences have involved music.
From the mad rock sounds of the French band The Inspector Cluzo in Peru; Gregorian chant in an 11th century cathedral in Berlin; impromptu jams by indigenous musicians in Iquitos on the Amazon River; the Amazon Symphony Orchestra itself playing Hayden and Strauss in Manaus, Brazil; to most recently discovering the incredible polyphonic voices at Tbilisi, Georgia’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, and many more, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a grand variety of world music along my journey.
This week I was looking online for more live music in Tbilisi and discovered to my delight that the internationally renowned Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra was performing this week at the Kakhidze theater, just a six-minute walk from where I live!
Get a feel for the scale of the monument by looking at the benches and the couple on the steps.
Yesterday my friend had the urge at 7:30 a.m. to visit the Chronicle of Georgia, a colossal monument designed by world-renowned contemporary artist Zurab Tsereteli.
My friend roused me from a filmy sleep with a ping on Whatsapp asking if I wanted to join her. She needed to start early because of an online English class she taught in the early afternoon.
I had the monument on my list of places to see in Tbilisi so I agreed to meet her in an hour at the Marshanavili Metro Station.
The monument turned out to be well worth getting up for.
