A long weekend looming in the distance, and Son away with
Grandma, the vaccinated Diplomat and I thought it would be a neat idea to go
somewhere in an attempt to pretend that all was like before. There were several
perfect flights leaving on a Friday night and coming back on a Monday night – Lisbon, Prague, Tallinn, Helsinki
– a dizzifying list of fabulous European capitals. The world, well, the EU, was
our oyster! Except that we are still in pandemic restrictions and none of these
places actually allow tourists, vaccinated or not. So much for that. And then
suddenly I had the brilliant idea to look east and find the practically perfect
flights to Tbilisi, Georgia! I guess my excitement was
catching, because our fabulous friend Z, upon hearing what we were up to,
decided to join us on the trip. I did not know it at the time, but Z is my
spirit travel animal. I honestly have no idea how we have ever traveled without
him before!
The trip started really well. The airport in Kyiv is about
25 kms from downtown, and it usually takes about 40 mins to get there, which
increases to an hour and a bit during Friday afternoon traffic. Cleverly
anticipating this, and counting on stopping by the VIP lounge to grab an early
dinner and glass of bubbly, we left a whole lot earlier than usual (much to the
constant consternation of the Diplomat, I am one of those people who always
leaves at the last moment to go to the airport since I detest waiting aimlessly
there, so leaving early was a big deal). 15 minutes later, we dove into
interminable traffic. It turned out that the Kyiv municipality had waited until
Friday peak traffic to begin an enormous reconstruction of one of the key
bridges taking folks towards that part of town where the airport is located.
And not only that, but it decided to couple that with a profound road
construction of the entire highway leading there, cutting 4 lanes to one. After
some creative driving (I am pretty sure at some point, the cab driver drove
through the fields), two hours later, disheveled and highly irritable, we burst
into the airport with about 20 minutes to spare to boarding. I am a planner. If
I had decided that I would go to the lounge for a light snack and bubbly, then
by golly, I WILL go to that damn lounge and have my (sad looking) snack and
bubbly. And so I did. And I even packed a spare (sad looking) sandwich for the
plane, just in case. All of that in 7 minutes! Ha!
3 hours later, we descended into the balmy night air of Tbilisi, to discover that
Uber did not function at the airport. I understood why when we were asked for
the equivalent of $20 to drive the 15 minutes to the hotel – it was called a
“curfew price.” You see, it turned out that Georgia had recently introduced a
night curfew of 11 pm, which meant that everyone had to be back home by then.
We arrived at 11:20 pm. Curfew taxi price it was!
We arrived in style at the majestic Sherton
Metechi Palace
and headed for the reception desk, hungry, thirsty, and most excited to begin
our culinary journey in famed Georgia
in our upgraded hotel suite. Not so much. We were coolly informed by the desk
lady that the bar is closed, there is no room service, and our only option to
get food is to order it, using a phone app. Mike drop! After we made it
patently clear just how immensely disappointed we were (the Diplomat can be
quite unpleasant when hungry), the poor woman allowed us to order KFC on her
phone, and brought us some contraband beer to the room with it. M-m-m,
finger-licking good…
The next morning, we set off to explore the beautiful city
under the blazing sun. Since we started at 11 am, we soon felt like we should
nosh on something to tie us over to lunch. So, nosh we did, coupled with a few
glasses of fresh, homemade rose. Then we killed a couple of hours checking out
architecture, until it was time to lunch in style at the magical Keto & Kote.
Perched on a high street in old town, the restaurant has incredible food and
fantastic view. Few bottles of wine later had us taking an afternoon nap at the
hotel. We had to prepare for dinner, after all! Dinner was much simpler, at a
wine store aptly called 1000 Vintages.
It seems the place has two locations and we ended up in the more underwhelming
one, without a full-fledged restaurant but still serving amazing meat platters.
Meat and wine. Hello! We went through a rapid 12-wine tasting only to deduce
that neither of us felt strongly about the traditional Georgian style of wines
(they are kept in clay pots, which leaves a distinctive aftertaste). We did
feel very strongly about the ones that were done in the classic style and to
prove it, bought ourselves a whooping $50 bottle of red for dinner (that is
expensive for Georgia but we were feeling reckless after tasting 12 wines in under
10 minutes). I don’t remember much of it though since, well, you know, the 12
wines…
The next day Z said that he would very much like to explore
the local public market and buy some spices. We spent almost an hour meandering
through the classic Eastern European market filled with ageing babushkas (which
actually means old grandmas, not headcoverings) and outstanding produce, while
sweating profusely in the rapidly heating day. One thing I will say about
Georgians – they are the most loving, friendly, welcoming people. We were
offered tastings of pickled vegetables, nuts, honey, spices, breads, by
numerous smiling old ladies and gentlemen without asking anything in return and
refusing to accept any money for anything. They were delighted to see a real
Indian and even more thrilled to learn that were American. In the end, we
decided on a particularly fun stall at the far end of the market where (we
imagined) the spices smelled even better. After forcing us to taste all 115 of
her spices, the portly lady insisted that we eat her sulguni (local VERY salty
cheese) and then she whipped out soft, delicious white bread to go with it. Clearly
delighted at the sight of us with cheeks stuffed with
sulguni and bread, she brought
out a large box of salad which was apparently her own lunch and insisted we
finish it all, while cutting more and more bread. Her cup of joy was not full,
however, until she pulled out a plastic bottle of home wine from the fridge and
filled out a giant plastic cup of wine for each one of us, including herself. For
the next hour, we ate a kilo of cheese, two breads, a salad, and drank 2 liters
of a most delicious, light white wine.
Somehow we made our way to
Fabrika,
an old abandoned factory, which has been converted into an eclectic office/cultural/eating/drinking
space. After a lunch of ramen, we rolled back into the hotel for a postprandial,
dreamless nap. Dinner time found us in old town, traipsing the shady, leafy,
cobblestone streets and peeking into old courtyards, heavy with clotheslines
and children playing soccer. Dinner was had in the ridiculously romantic
Café Littera, which had
equally ridiculously bad/slow service and rather pleasant menu by an
award-winning chef.
A visit to Tbilisi
would not be complete without going to the beautiful sulphur baths in the
middle of old town. So, the next day, in 40 degree heat, we decided to go for a
soak in the, um, hot baths. What no one tells you is exactly how hot the
sulphur water would be. Which is A LOT. It took some guts to get inside, and it
was impossible to stay longer than 5 minutes or so before jumping out of it
screaming, read as a lobster, and diving into the cold pool next to it. We also
got scrubbed and lathered with cheap soap to finish off the experience. We came
out in the sweltering heat weakened and squeaky clean, jumped into a cab and
rode to the other end of town in search of the best hinkali. They were!
The rest of our stay was more walking, more heat, more
gorgeous architecture, smiling and helpful people, and more delicious food and
wine. We capped the weekend with a long and saturating visit to a
wine store,
which allowed us to bring back 15 bottles of wine and cognac. What a great country!
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