Bare Bodies Bathing

May 22.

Awoke in Tbilisi in the Rooms Hotel. This is a new experience for us on this trip, an upscale hotel. A large spacious lobby, 24-hour desk  manned by staff that speak English and a nice bar and restaurant. The breakfast offered cooked-to-order eggs and lots of other choices. Very good.

Others from the group that are here to attend the wedding began to stagger into the lobby area, in some cases looking a bit bedraggled since they had a very long trip from the US on multiple flights and had arrived in Tbilisi in the early morning hours.

Karen went off with some locals to a hair appointment, so I and one of the earlier arrivals took a walk into Tbilisi. A short time on Kostavas St (that must be like Washington Street because it showed up in virtually every Georgian town we visited) and then through Rustavelis Square and onto Rustavelis. All named in honor of Georgia's preeminent poet. It seems to be Tbilisi's main thoroughfare and is lined with important buildings and upscale shops. Many of the buildings appear to have been built in the late 19th and early 20th century and need some maintenance. They were residential but have largely been converted to commercial use.  It also has a lot of traffic, which would be difficult for a pedestrian to cross and no traffic lights. Cars turn using roundabout lanes while pedestrians use one of several underpasses, which themselves are little commercial centers. We walked almost to Tavisuplebis Square (Freedom), but instead took the Metro back to Rustavelis. It was confusing at first, since the automated machine was not for the purchase of new Metro cards. Instead, it is an all-purpose payment center to pay a variety of bills or add to a Metro card. We purchased a single card for 2 lari and fares were .5 lari each. Got on the right train and road one stop. The system was constructed in 1950 (during the "Soviet era"). It seems old but well maintained.

After Karen returned, we did a similar walking tour, slower, understanding more of what we were seeing and taking more pictures. The large Parliament Building is undergoing renovation. It seems the last regime wanted to move the capital to another city, but that decision has been reversed. A country's growing pains. Built during the Soviet era, it was the site of the killings of the 19 hunger strikers in 1989 that ultimately lead to Georgian independence and the Rose Revolution demonstrations in 2003. Lots of history here. We thought that we were being sent to the post office. That was a mistake. We did not have time to find the real post office, so we returned to the hotel to get back in time for the scheduled trip to The Baths.

The Baths are part of the legend that leads to the founding of Tbilisi. In the 5th century, Kind Vakhtang Gorgasli was hunting and wounded a deer, which fell into hot sulphur springs and was miraculously healed.  He started the town there and its name is based on the springs -- tbili, means warm in Georgian. The current bathhouses date back to the 17th century. They are subterranean with beehive domes rising above ground level so approaching them presents a weird sight.

Alex Dumas and Pushkin both bathed here. Our visit started out with a bit of a snafu. One contingent was coming from the mother-in-law's lunch which was held up, others arrived late, and I think that one group ended up in a different bathhouse. We were the first ones there, by cab, which are inexpensive, but require a negotiated price. Once all arrived, we really did not know what to do. Ended up that the old folks disrobed (no changing rooms) and  wrapped ourselves in sheets, which when we entered the hot bath turned out to leave little to the imagination. The young folks wore bathing suits. The baths were warm and relaxing, but then we took the next step, the massage and scrape. That entailed a complete disrobing in an adjacent area. One by one we lay on a marble slab and were massaged, rubbed, scaled and washed with a giant application of soap suds. In between, we got doused with buckets of hot water. An invigorating and revealing experience.

After that, a group of us had dinner at a restaurant in Old Town very near the baths.  We ordered communally and had a variety of Georgian dishes. Wine, beer and a Georgian clear liquor made from the remainders of the wine-making process called chacha. Very potent stuff.

After we returned to the hotel, we went out on the patio for more drinking (that turned out to be a recurring theme throughout the Georgia experience) and awaited the arrival of more wedding attendees. Flights from Europe seem to come into Georgia late or early in the morning, so I lasted only until the first arrival at 1:30.