King Tamar’s cave city

e felt much perkier today as the temperature had gone down from 40 (104) to 34 (93) degrees. Also it was only 1.5 hours to our eventual destination. First we stopped off to go over a wobbly bridge to take a view of Tomogri Castle. Our guide gave a good lecture on the history of King (female) Tamar, their greatest ruler from the 12th century. The ruler of Persia wrote to ask her to marry him. He said if she agreed to let him be King of Georgia she could be Queen of Persia. But if she didn’t, she could be a concubine. Her response - “Prepare for war”.

We drove up a beautiful river valley, stopping to view Khertvisi Fortress, dramatically situated on a cliff above the confluence of two rivers. It is one of the oldest in Georgia, dating from 2nd century BCE.

Continuing up the Mtkvari river, we reached Vardzia, established by George III (father of Tamar) in 12th century, a city cut into towering cliffs. It was set up as a stronghold against the Turks. In fact it it only 10 km from the current border. The cave city was further developed by Tamar who created a cave monastery. We walked up to see it, remembering our scarves as it is still used. The frescos inside were original and beautiful but we weren’t allowed to photograph them, only the ones in the entrance.

The caves once numbered 3000 with up to 19 tiers, but much was destroyed after a huge earthquake in 1456. According to our guide, further destruction was caused by the Soviets in the 1960s as they used the caves as target practice for the Afghan War.

Alix discouraged one of our party from taking the ‘adventurous’ way back which was an option. It had rails in most places but the steps were steep and uneven. We also had narrow steep tunnels to negotiate, and exposed places with narrow steps and steep drops. I had thought I’d better give it a miss but when I saw she was going I changed my mind and set off. She turned back quite quickly but we carried on. We took our time and it was fine, and it was good to get the exercise after so many days sitting in the bus.

We had a lovely lunch of salads and red spotted trout in a pretty garden before the drive back down the valley. On returning to our hotel we decided to go out again to look at Rabati Castle, restored in 2012. Looks like I am getting acclimated as it was 34 degrees as I climbed the steps to the castle without get grumpy and sweaty.

Now it’s time for a vodka.