Friday, May 24 - Day 4

Florian and I woke up and we went for a bit of sight-seeing in downtown, visiting the synagogue.

Our first destination was the railway station, as it is nearly impossible to buy tickets online, Florian had tried, the site crashed a couple of times. We took the metro to get there - and it was quite metropolitan...I mean cosmopolitan.

At the station, it was a bit of an adventure to find the correct place, then we pulled a waiting ticket number and soon were called. A friendly lady with quite good English knowledge assisted us. We decided we would leave not on Saturday, but on Monday, for Yerevana and bought tickets for the night train. We had to show our passports like three times, pay the fee for the trip to Yerevan, get the change, then pay for the return trip, get the change - not much different to Soviet-era procedures Hungary from just a couple of years ago. Altogether, it was an OK experience, it could have been a lot worse. Spoiler alert - a few days later, it would come to a much worse experience at this station. But for now, we were happy fellows, having a ticket to Yerevan for the train the following Monday evening and a return ticket a couple of days later. The reason we picked Monday (and not Saturday) was the we decided to explore more of Georgia over the weekend.

Our Georgian destination for the weekend was Sighnaghi, a small town in the easternmost part of Georgia, in the heart of Georgia'swine-growing region. The town itself is located on a steep hill, it has pastel houses and narrow,cobblestone streets - and is a popular tourist destination. Our host, Vic, told us which metro station to catch a marshutka, and as soon as we exited the building, a bunch of private taxi drivers jumped on us. They quoted a price of €40, so €20 a head, which was not a bad price for some 120 kilometers. As I had lived in Asia, I started haggling and one of the drivers, a rather old guy, said he would take us for €30 - with the other drivers shouting at him angrily.

The ancient Mercedes we got into was comfortable, but even getting out of the parking lot proved to be a challenge for our driver. He was not on top of his trade, he veered off his lane when he turned around to us and stopped in random places to smoke a cigarette. The further we got, the better his driving would be, by the time we arrived, I was actually mildly satisfied by his maneuvers. The ride up the steep hill at the end of our ride was not so much a challenge for him, but for the ancient car, but we made it in one piece - even though we needed 3 hours for a 120-km trip.

Florian had already booked a room for himself in a narrow side street, but they had no vacancy, so I had a look for a room - this time in May, there were plenty of other options in the vicinity: so I got quite a good deal in a somewhat antiquated, but clean place within walking distance. I even had a veranda in front of my room, plus a washing machine in the common parts.

We marveled at the natural beauty of the town.

At a local Spar - yes, Spar is actually quite strong in Georgia - we met a young couple with American linkage and talked about the Caucasian experiences.

We had dinner in the restaurants of my hosts, it was very tasty, we especially liked the eggplant rolls with walnuts. called nigvziani badrijani. After dinner, I retired on my veranda, where a cat made itself rather comfortable in my lap.

I retired rather early that evening.