Hidden Pearls: Tbilisi

Hello everyone, how are things going?
First of all, thank you very much for reading us...your presence is fundamental for us :)
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We just arrived in Armenia, after six days in Tbilisi.
We were pleasantly surprised by the quiet, relaxing beauty of this town and the overwhelming kindness of Georgians, their sense of hospitality and their neverending patience.

We arrived in Georgia on Saturday 6th, after a 27-hour bus ride from Istanbul. Needless to say that we were exhausted and as this wasn't enough we found ourselves at Ortachala station, exactly on the other side of the city from our guest house.
After a quick walk to Gulia Square we crossed a taxi driver who offered his help, though he didn't have any clue about the directions to our destinations.
But he took us anyway close to Marjanishvili Square, which was only a couple of minutes from the guest house.
The manager waited for us until late at night and the morning after he gave us a map of Tbilisi with his recommendations for the best place to visit or for lunch.
So we headed to Rustaveli Avenue, one of the principal arteries of the city, and Freedom Square, where we had khinkali for lunch.
Khinkali are some sort of dumplings with various fillings inside, and the shape reminds vaguely of Japanese nikuman.
They cost nothing (averagely 0,60 lari, 27 eurocents each) and they're extremely good!

Later on we visited the Georgian National Museum, with the famous collection dedicated to the Soviet Occupation era.

It was really touching and it taught us a lot about the Georgians' determination for a free country, their massive efforts and the suffering they bore even after the declaration of independence in 1991.
I will write a further article about it later on.


We loved it so much we didn't resist and we went back there a couple of days later to see the rest of the museum, which includes a wide collection of jewellery from the 3rd Millennium b.C. to the 4th century AD, prehistoric exhibits from the Bronze to the Iron Age, and an Oriental Art wing with paintings, crafts and other various objects mostly from Iran, China and Japan.

Another great spot is the Narikala fortress uphill, which you can reach either with an intricated staircase from the Old City quarter or via ropeway from Europe Square.
Stefano and I are quite afraid of heights so you can imagine the tragicomical situation as soon as we were drifting in the air!
But the sight of the gigantic Kartlis Deda (Mother of Kartli) from a very close distance, and the view of the hills behind the city, were definitely worth the effort.

There is not much up there too apart from the old semi abandoned fortress though, so we descended by foot and we found ourselves in the freshly restorated Sulphur Bath area.

The sad thing of Tbilisi is seeing dozens of casinos and luxury hotes popping out from everywhere like mushrooms, in a desperate effort to appeal the West more and feeling accepted as a potential EU State.
Georgia always felt more European than Asian from the cultural point of view.

In my opinion is good for Georgia to get rid of everything concerning their old status as "Soviet region" and make space for a brand new era, but they constantly risk to lose their true identity for the sake of conformity with the West.

Despite this, Georgia really is a place to discover and I hope to come back here soon to explore it even better.

Next time I will tell you about Armenia and Yerevan, I personally cannot wait to see the house of one of my favourite composers ever, Aram Khachaturian!
See you soon!


(ugly pics by me, good pics by Steve Genzo)

it's OK to be a bit lost...more Turkish delight!

It's been two weeks since we officially started our trip and sometimes I have the feeling that we've been "running" a bit too much, mostly because we were overexcited to see this part of world which most people very seldom consider, maybe because it's not "fashionable" as London, Paris or New York would be.

But let me tell you more about Istanbul, the thousands of cats we crossed on our way (I still want to go back there and take them all with me!) and the spell it might cast on you as soon as you cross the city gates.

• Istanbul smells damn good. I really mean it. Whenever we went out somewhere we could smell chestnuts, Turkish coffee, hookahs, clovers, saffron and dried fruits, no matter where were we.
• With less than 10 liras you can have a proper meal almost everywhere. There are two cafes in the lower part of the Galata Bridge where you can taste a spartan, but delicious mackerel sandwich with a view over the Golden Horn. All for the price of a Starbucks latte or less.
• The whole city is a great maze. You can get easily lost but you cannot mind much as the things you find are far more interesting than finding the right route.
• CATS GALORE. EVERYWHERE. You can have a çay in front of a çay evi (tea house) or çay bahcesi (tea garden) and find yourself surrounded by those little meowing furry balls which we all adore (no excpetions, whoever claims to hate cats is a liar and that's all). Just look for the smallest cafes, the ones with tiny chairs and possibly in slopy alleys. They're cheap and excellent and kitties are free of charge.
• Turkish food is great. From simit (which I mentioned in my last post-you can find them anywhere in the city from street vendors with tiny red chariots), to manti (Turkish hand made raviolis served with a yogurt sauce. Lots of restaurants now have the habit of exposing a lady making hundreds of mantis from scratch in front of everyone. Though this normally proves the genuine production of this delicacy, the best ones are made in a proper kitchen), to, ça va sans dire, lokum and baklavas for dessert.
• The Grand Bazaar. It's not necessary to look something to buy here: a view in the late afternoon, as soon as they switch the lights on, is the greatest of souvenirs.

Here's some spare pics, as promised:

The Grand Bazaar is astonishing from floor to ceiling. Literally.

  

The Blue Mosque, indeed my greatest crush so far.

The Galata Tower was our personal good morning view.

 

 I'm sorry for the picture placing inconvenience...though I like it, and you?
Talk soon!

East or West?

Hello everyone, I am so excited to tell you everything about Istanbul that I'm blogging directly from my phone, as we're on our way to the next destination and my laptop is currently with the rest of our stuff in the luggage trunk.

So I apologise in advance for the indecent aesthetic of this post :D

It's hard to leave Istanbul, and Turkey generally, after spending a good week losing myself between the prayer calls of the muezzin, the smell of the sea, the taste of simit (our Turkish diet depended for the 90% from these inexpensive, but delightful crowns of bread topped with poppy or sunflower seeds) and çay breaks every now and then.

We've been in the European part of the city for most of our time. Our B&B was in the area of Taksim 1, which in my opinion is the ideal if you prefer a cheap place.

We had the possibility of visiting plenty of places, but the one I loved the most was the Sultanahmet Camii, more famously known as the Blue Mosque.

Hey, I've never ever been into a mosque before!

The first thing that captures your attention is the peace and quiet in the minarets. This Mosque has six.

The Sultan Ahmet commissioned the works for this mosque when he was 19 years old. And he had been reigning for five years at the time!

The mosque contained at first a hospital, a madrasah (a higher education institute), an imaret (soup kitchen), a primary school, a bazaar, a private tomb for the members of the royal family, and a muvakkithane, a time house (please correct me if I'm wrong), where astronomers could watch the stars and make studies for calculating religious holidays and prayer times.

Everyone knows that the worldwide-known denomination of Blue Mosque derives from the dominant colour blue of its interiors.

The walls are covered with more than 21000 tiles from Izmik, old Nicaea, all finely decorated with tulips and other doodles but keeping the colour blue as the dominant one.

The flowery decorations represent the Earth during spring and the Gardens of Paradise.

Another attention-catcher stands in the four fil paye, "elephant paws", pillars of a diameter of 5 meters with an essential Coranic quote at the top of each.

But the wonder and the beauty of this place doesn't stand only in its artworks and aesthetics. It's global, collective and intimate at the same time, and it gets straight to your heart as soon as you decide to get into it.

The ablution ritual, in which you have to wash all your more exposed parts before entering this place, the covering of the hair for women, and taking your shoes off at the entry, are all part of this intricate symbolism which make this place one of the most beautiful I have ever seen so far in my life.

Muslim people have been misunderstood and ostracised through the last years, due to media who constantly search the new "demon" to fight against.

But very few people are clever enough to dig deeper into things and try to fully understand the true meaning of this fascinating world.

Pictures will arrive very soon, I promise, but for the moment that's all! 

See you in Tbilisi, Georgia!

 

They gave us evil eyes but we didn't mind

On Friday we arrived in Izmir passing through the Greek island of Chios and the frontier town of Çeşme. It was real! We really were in Turkey!
As someone who barely had the chance to travel much and barely set a foot outside her city borders, you can imagine my excitement as the officer at the frontier put a stamp on my passport:

Once we got off our minibus we felt a bit disoriented as the streets are not organised like anywhere else! It took us a while to find our hostel and figure out where were we exactly :)

The history of Izmir is really engaging: born as a small village, in the 8th century BC starts founding colonies in Syria, Lebanon, Greece and the Black Sea.
In short, this city has met plenty of invasions from every possible intruder, it has been destroyed and rebuilt dozens of times, it was Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, Genoan, from the 15th century Ottoman, before passing to Greece for a few years and then became Turkish after the revolution lead by Atatürk.
This constant change of identity let Izmir mature up one of its own, it became a city where no one was a stranger. It was a model in the Ottoman Empire for being a multicultural, multiconfessional and polyglot city.
This let a new category of inhabitants grow, a mix of Italian, French and Mediterranean blood, called levantines.
Before the Great Fire in 1922, it was possible to notice the striking difference between Turkish and Levantine quarters, especially in the house architecture.

A place you should absolutely visit is the Ethnography Museum, the entry is free of charge and offers lots of inspiration material regarding Turkish costumes and habits.
They explain how evil eye charms, carpets and felt are made, and they have reproductions of n old Ottoman house and some workshops, as everything is disappearing due to industrialization.
There is also a rich section about camel wrestling (!!!), very popular among Nomads of the Aegean region.

Evil eyes and an old chemist laboratory

Camel wrestlers (yes sir) (we obviously dissociate from this kind of animal exploitment)

Carpet loom and crafts

And just next to it there is the Archeology museum, entry is 10 Liras (about 3,60 euros), where you can find a rich detailed history of Izmir and nearby cities (Ephesus, the twelve cities and islands of the Ionian League, and towns as Gryneion and Myrina, founded by the Amazons), with a great section about jewels and ancient money (we were not allowed to take photos there - but I hope you can get there and see them yourself!).

Hygeia (Greek goddess of health)

Bronze bust of Demeter

 You can find them both in the Konak area, not far from the famous Clock Tower and the Kemeralti bazaar.

So, I hope I gave you an idea of what you can find here, and maybe for the next Mediterranean holiday you might pop down here sometimes and see by yourself the richness of this town :)
Next time I will tell you about Istanbul! Hoşçakal!