Day zero - Monday 26 May 2014 : London Gatwick to Tbilisi, Georgia
Turkish Airlines are the only folk who ply a decent trade from London so, via Istanbul, we flew 4067 km from Gatwick on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, arriving in Tbilisi after midnight on Tuesday morning (40 minute late as the a/c broke...though we're 3 hours ahead of BST so it's not too late in my head).
In any event, the pre-booked taxi was duly waiting, and delivered us quickly at the SkadeVeli Guesthouse as planned. "Madloba" (thank you) is as far as my Georgian stretches at present (probably goes down better than spaseeba, the only Russian I can manage) though I'm working on it.
The rough plan is to spend three days in and around Tbilisi, then catch an overnight train on Thursday to Yerevan in southern Armenia, have a couple of nights there before making our way slowly northwards back over the border to Tbilisi via a place called Dilijan (apparently the "Switzerland of Armenia") and a collection of UNESCO-heritage monasteries and churches set against the backdrop of the canyon of the Debed river.
Added to all of which is that Georgia proclaims itself the cradle of wine-making (apparently archeologists have found evidence of wine-making in eastern Georgia dating back about 7000 years so they must know a thing or two) and Armenian spirits are world-famous (its national liquor tipple is cognac; Stalin sent cases to Churchill of "Ararat", which continues to be distilled at the Yerevan Brandy Company) so there is research to be done...
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