Around Telavi, Georgia and back to Tbilisi

June 1

Breakfast again with the kittens and served by the Ukrainian hostess who seemed very distracted. The breakfast was mediocre.

We packed up and set out according to a plan to visit the villages and countryside in a vast circle around Telavi. The GPS was not working, but we had a good local map which proved to be very effective since we did not get lost anytime during the day. Our first stop was the Ikalto Monastery, about 8km northwest of Telavi. Easy to find, about 2km off the main road and up a hill on a dirt, but smooth road. The monastery was founded in the 6th century by a Syrian Christian and 600 years later it was converted to an academy by King David (the Georgian, not the Goliath slayer). The main church was in good shape and had an 19th century cupola. The academy was ravaged by the Persians and is now roofless. Behind all this were a large collection of clay vessels in which wine was produced.

We got back on the road and drove to the Alaverdi Cathedral. This was gigantic. It is 50m high and was the tallest cathedral in Georgia for 1000 years after it was built in the 11th century. The outside wall was encased by a colorful rose garden. To me the cathedral looked like what a cathedral should look like. Its exterior is classically proportioned with rounded arches, but minimal decorations. Inside it was very spacious and much better lighted than most European cathedrals by a large 16 windowed cupola. The interior also contained many frescoes in varying stages of decay. As we saw throughout Georgia, there was a St. George and dragon over the main entrance. It is a working monastery. I had to put on long pants to enter and they are still producing wine here. After the visit to the monastery we went across the street and had a cold yogurt dish.

Next on the tour was the Gremi Citadel. It is a very impressive structure.For 250 years from 1466 Gremi was the capital of the Kakheti state and the brick citadel guarded the town. But the Persians under Shah Abbas came through and reduced the town to ruins. As part of that conquest the Persians tortured Queen Ketevan to death for refusing to renounce Christianity. Seems that things have not changed in this area of the world in the last 500 years. The Citadel was well preserved and in the process of climbing into and through its bell tower it afforded great views of the river and surrounding countryside.

It was getting late so we skipped a couple of destinations and drove back toward Telavi to go to the Chavhavadze family estate in Tsinandali. This estate was built by a Georgian aristocrat whose father was Georgia's first ambassador to Russia and a godson of Catherine the Great. Alas in the mid 19th century some marauding tribesmen from Dagestan ransacked the estate and kidnapped 23 women and children. The builder's son had to mortgage the estate to ransom the family. He could not pay back the loan so the Czar scouped in to pay of the loan and ended up with the place. Most of the family is now in France. The house is now a museum, and like most places in Georgia has a vineyard and winery on the premises. For 20 Lari we got to sample  several wines and thus walked around the grand grounds very happy.

We then pointed the car back to Tbilisi. It was a straightforward, but exciting drive going over the 5000 ft Gombori pass. Fortunately there were lots and lots of switchbacks so the car slowly made it.

We cruised back into Tbilisi and checked back into the Renaissance hotel for the third time. We walked over to old town through a park at the base of the hill where our hotel was located and had dinner in an organic restaurant, albeit with lots of meat. After dinner we walked back over the Peace Bridge and entered a park. It was 10:00 pm but there were lots of young families there and vendors selling all sorts of food. We had some sweets and frozen dessert.     

Rovinj - Seems like a Great Place to Live

May 6, Wednesday

Rovinj is a wonderful Old World oasis on the Adriatic coast. We were told that the Croatia coastline consists of mostly pretty, interchangeable, tacky, tourist towns. Rovinj is not like that. Its streets are delightfully twisty, its houses crumbling in a romantic way and its harbor seems to be a working facility alive with fishermen and their boats, along with a birth for a cruise ship. After 500 years of Italian rule, mostly by the Venetian Republic it has a very decided Italian cultural, linguistic, gastronomical and architectural flavor. Indeed Italian seems to be spoken as much as Croatian and many highway signs were also in Italian. The Austrians got the place after Napoleon was defeated. However they put their development money on the Istria peninsula into Pula and Trieste so Rovinj just seems to have lingered in Old World quaintness. This is a real place with skinny houses, not palaces and working fishing boats, not Russian oligarch yachts. During tourist season, we were too early for that, I was told that lots of Germans come here. The map noted the free body culture beach, which I was told was international shorthand for nudity, or as our guesthouse host lady said, pudgy nude bodies. 

After we got up we went to the small market across the street to buy some food. Focused on breakfast, fruit, milk and cereal, but also some items for dinner. Prices were pretty comparable to those at home. We then walked into town past the bus station and taxi cab stand, along the harbor waterfront and to the cruise ship (small) dock just outside old town. From here there is good view of the old town with the Venetian looking buildings seeming to rise straight out of the water. At the top of the hill is a large church topped by a bell tower with a weather vane in the shape of Rovinj's patron saint, Euphemia. If she is facing land, bad weather is soon to follow.

We then went over to the Communist era monument. This is a huge, ponderous stone that celebrates The Yugoslav Partisan's Army WWII victory over the Germans and commemorates victims of fascism. It is a bilingual memorial. and without any subtlety shows prisoners being prodded by guns in their backs from a soldier wearing a Nazi style helmet. The whole scene is very jarring in the context of the old town. Many of the Croatians we spoke with praised Tito, particularly for the peace and prosperity that they enjoyed under his rule, but younger Croatians praised independence and the absence of communism.

We then went to a large open air market. Purchased many vegetables and greens. These prices were low compared to our local Farmer's Markets and, perhaps due to the lateness of the hour, many vendors pressed additional goods into our bags.  There was a large Hapsburg era fountain in the center of the market. Exiting the market we walked down Garibaldi Ave (he of 19th century Italian reunification) and into Square of the Bridge. In the Middle Ages under the Venetians, Rovinj was an island. The Italians lived there and traded, while the Slaves farmed on the mainland and the two groups mixed only by crossing the bridge at this site. In 1763 the waterway was filled in, the populations mixed and Rovinj became a peninsula. There were lively cafes, bars, ice cream shops and a cultural center around the square.The latter showed off the flat-bottomed fishing boats used by the locals and had announcements of musical events.

We walked out of the square past the Town Hall (under reconstruction) with a Venetian lion and into the larger Tito Square. There is a fountain in the center with reliefs of stiff, socialist workers and a boy holding a water spouting fish. This commemorates the building of a town water system in 1959. Before that people hauled water from fountains to their homes. Many of the fountains remain. We walked out on a concrete pier that lead into the harbor and viewed the early set ups for a photography exhibit. From the pier we saw across the harbor a monstrosity for workers' vacations from the Tito era.

We then walked through the Balbi Arch constructed by the Venetians and started up the hill into the heart of Old Town. We passed through a little square that had a restaurant which was once a cistern that collected rainwater and up Grisia Street. This is the main shopping street, actually a narrow twisting lane, that had many small art galleries. Off this street there were many very small courtyards, nooks and crannies with houses poking out at many angles.

At the top we entered the Church of St. Euphemia. It dates from 1754 and is topped by a 190ft bell tower that looked very much to me like an imitation of the bell tower in St Marks square in Venice. Euphemia was the virtuous daughter of a prosperous Roman official in Istanbul in the 3rd century AD. She converted to Christianity and gave her fortune away to help the poor. Unfortunately she was doing this during the reign of Emperor Diocletian who was not happy with Christians. He had her arrested, tortured and thrown to the lions. The lions, clearly early converts, miraculously declined to attack her. All of this is documented in paintings within the church.. Euphemia's big marble sarcophagus supposedly floated from the Adriatic up to Rovinj's shores in 800. It was very heavy, but through a miracle a young boy with two calves moved it up to the hill top church were it resides today.

We walked back down through another restaurant row and stopped for some drinks and a bathroom break. Returned to our apartment and cooked dinner with our purchases. After dinner we walked back into town for a night time stroll and some ice cream. 

         

Coratia - Debrovnik is the darling, but Split has the Sizzle

Saturday May 9


Split is the second largest city in Croatia (Zagreb is the largest and the capital and where we will visit on the way back) and is decidedly not just a coastal tourist town, although it is a cruise ship port. It is real and vibrant with an ugly urban sprawl that surrounds an interesting Old Town. Coming from Rovinj it seemed as if we were returning to civilization.

Our guesthouse host presented us with an eclectic  breakfast, coffee, Danish and some Croatian noodles, and then gave us directions to old town. Upon leaving our "soba" we came upon a basketball game at a schoolyard court. We continued down to the City Harbor area and passed through the large open air Green market that was both bustling and offered for sale just about any type of food and clothing that one could imagine or desire.

The core of Split's old town is Diocletian's Palace. Diocletian was the Roman emperor from 284-305 AD. His two main claims to fame were his decision to administratively split the empire into four regions, each ruled by an emperor and his campaign of torture and execution against Christians. The Roman empire contained many religions and the empire was tolerant of them, so long as they recognized and accepted the emperor as the top guy. The Christians would not do this, so the empire killed them. Both of these did not work out well. The administrative split facilitated the splintering of the empire and lead to its permanent division into eastern, the Byzantine and western/Roman empires. The former survived for another 1000 years but the latter soon succumbed to the Huns, Goths, Visigoths and other assorted barbarians. Torturing the Christians (it is believed that only a few thousand were killed) neither convinced them to change their views nor stamp them out. Shortly thereafter Diocletian's successor, Constantine, (with a big boost from his wife) legalized Christianity, made it the official religion of the Byzantine empire and converted on his death bed. In that polity Christianity, Eastern Orthodox version, prospered into the fifteenth century until crushed by the Ottomans.

Diocletian was from this area and like a good bureaucrat he worked his way up the Roman hierarchy to the top spot. As he grew older he decided to return to his homeland for retirement. (I was under the incorrect impression that Roman emperors, like Popes did not retire, I thought that they died in office, in the latter years of the empire, frequently by unnatural means.)  To facilitate the move he commissioned the construction of an enormous retirement palace complex which is located on the harbor in the heart of the city. It took 11 years to build. Its two major elements are the royal villa and a fortified Roman town. By the 7th century the villa fell into ruins and was occupied by Slavic invaders. When the Venetians conquered this region in the 15th century they rebuilt the palace with a layer of Gothic Renaissance architecture.

After going through the market we ended up on the Riva, the waterfront strand. Lots of ice cream stands. There was also a car sized model of the old town. We entered the Palace through its backdoor, the Brass gate, which originally served as the Palace's water entrance and the water came right up to the gate.  This portion of the palace wall is over 600' in length, but in many areas is obstructed by two story residences erected by the Slavs. There were scores of large arched windows which illuminated the back of the palace where the emperor and his family lived.

We walked through the palace to the east and into Slavija Square and then out of the palace through the Iron Gate to Radic Brothers Square. Not crowded since the cruise boats had not yet disgorged their inhabitants. It contained a large Venetian citadel that was supposedly designed both to ward off Ottoman incursions and discourage the citizens of Split from entertaining thoughts of rebellion. There was also a large sculpture by Ivan Mestrovic of Marko Marulic. The former was a first half of the 20th century ardent Yugoslav nationalist, devout Catholic and thus an anti communist. He rejected Tito and was embraced by Eisenhower who conferred American citizenship on him. We saw his worked throughout Croatia. The latter is considered the father of the modern Croatian language. On the harbor side of the square was Croata, a boutique necktie shop which explained how Croatia invented the modern necktie. Croatian soldiers during the thirty years war tied their scarves in a distinctive manner. The French, their opponents in the war, adopted the fashion and gave it to the modern world. The ties, although very distinctive, were also pretty expensive, from about $85 to handmade ones with 24 caret gold accents that were priced at $675. (We later saw a similar store in Zagreb.)

We then went to the bigger People's Square, which is the center of the old town. Very busy with lots of cafes with outdoor seating. There was a big relief of St. Anthony. The former City Hall, which now is a museum, fronted on the square. We had lunch at a second story Croatian restaurant off an alley off the square. Good value and lots of food.

After lunch we went back into the Palace through a number of narrow alleys lined with attractive shops and walked up to the Golden Gate. This was the inland, largest and main entrance to the Palace. It had a double door design and at the top of the gate was a nicely landscaped terrace garden. Just outside the gate is another Mestrovic statue of an over sized Bishop Gregory of Nin, a 10th century Croatian priest who changed the mass in Croatia from Latin to Croatian. You rub his big toe for good luck.

Back in the fortified town we walked to the Split Synagogue. We rang the bell, but no one came out. This is supposedly the third oldest practicing synagogue in Europe, after Dubrovnik and Prague.

After that we walked to Peristyle Square, which is the center of the Palace. There was an inviting bar, the Luxor on the west side. It provided red cushions on the steps to drink outside. There was live music there, a male guitar player singing popular western songs. We walked around to the side of the Cathedral of St. Dominus, but before we went in we walked to the back of the palace on the roof. We saw a fashion photo shoot. We climbed the 200 ft. high bell tower, 183 steps (I counted them), for a sweeping, 360 degree view of Split. We then descended into the crypt, a musty domed cellar with weird acoustics. It was turned into a chapel and there were lots of scraps of paper with scrawled prayers to Saint Lucia, who was martyred by Diocletian. Finally we visited the Cathedral. We had to enter from the side and climbed up stairs. We first looked at the treasury/museum. That was skippable. The building was originally the site of Diocletian's tomb. When he died there were riots of joy and by the 7th century the building was enlarged and his mausoleum was converted to a cathedral dedicated to Bishop Dominus of nearby Salona whom he killed by drowning. Jupiter's temple was also added.

The last stop in the Palace area was the Cellars. The land sloped down to the water's edge so there was plenty of room down here. Now it is a gallery and a souvenir shop.

We left the Palace area by way of the Cardo, the main north south street in a traditional roman street plan. We passed a bank office in which modern computers were visible around the exposed Roman ruins. We walked past a park in which they were setting up for a concert. As we walked back to our room, a torrential downpour occurred. We waited that out under the stalls of the now deserted market with a French couple.   

We had some snacks and rest in our room before heading back out in the evening to walk along the Riva and further west of the Palace. We ate dinner, had some ice cream and went back to the park to listen to the concert for a while.