And the capital of Georgia is.....

Tbilisi!  It was our next destination and everyone was excited about some city life, cafes and restaurants and 2 nights in a hotel.  It was only a few hours drive and we got there around lunch time.  The main priority at that point for me and many others after 5 nights bushcamping was laundry.  The hotel was really expensive so we decided to try and find a laundrette.  A real team effort was employed, with me finding one in the Georgian Yell.com site, googling the address, Hayden getting our guide to phone them and then all of us for finding it!  It's definitely one thing that is a pain when on the road and your definition of whether something is clean definitely changes - wearing something once and washing it is a luxury that we can't give ourselves!

With reassurances that our laundry would be ready the next day we all headed off for a bit of a wander around and then sat and had a drink in a nice bar.  It has to be said though - whilst it was obvious from our surroundings that we were back in the city, we would have known from the attitude of the people.  Whilst in the countryside everyone was really friendly - not so much in the city, with everyone from the hotel staff to shop workers being quite abrupt and/or rude!  Oh well.

Louise and Becs had decided to try and organise a group meal for the evening so we headed back to get ready for that.  They had booked an Indian restaurant which we were all looking forward to.  We headed off in anticipation and walked through some questionable areas before we reached the restaurant, which seemed nice enough.  However the evening was not a success, with meals taking up to 2 hours to arrive, food arriving cold and some disputes over bills.  It was not the best start to a night that was supposed to end up with us going for a night on the town - unfortunately most of us had had enough and ended up back at the hotel for just after 10pm.  It was a shame, not the girls' fault though - the restaurant was just not equipped to deal with a group our size all ordering different things.  The day in Tbilisi though had not been a resounding success, with the best part being finding the laundry!

The next morning Za Za, our guide, did a walking tour of the city.  Unfortunately my feet were covered in blisters from all the walking the day before so I decided to give it a miss.  Instead I just pottered around the hotel then caught the metro into Liberty Sq.  Whilst wandering around I came across half a dozen of the group and joined them for lunch.  Jo and I then went to find the funicular railway and took a trip up to the top of the hill for a view of the city......

At the top of the hill there was some cafes but mostly a kind of kids area with rides etc, not for me but just nice to get the good view.  We then headed back to get our clean laundry and at night I had a night at the ballet to look forward to!  I'd read in the Lonely Planet that Tbiisi was a good place for either opera or ballet.  There was no opera on so a night at the ballet it was.  Anna and Simon also wanted to go so they had got me a ticket - they were so expensive at £2 each!  We headed there and had pretty good seats.  It was quite enjoyable, especially for the price!

Anna at the opera

That was it for my time in Georgia.  I have to say I've enjoyed it on the whole - the people have been nice, they food good and the scenery has been stunning.  It's cheap and accessible from Europe so look out for more people coming here in the next 10 years.

Next stop Armenia!