On our last day in Georgia, we visited the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral known as the burial site of Christ’s robe, dating back to the 11th century.
This may be it, or it’s the Eastern Orthodox architecture of the Jvari Monastery. Stunning either way.
This definitely was the Cathedral. The story is a girl had Christ’s robe in her hands and when they came to take it from her, she could not let it go, no matter who tried. Also, this girl cut her hair and twisted it around two sticks to make a cross. That is why the crosses in this church are representative of the misshapen sticks tied with her hair. I missed the part about how she dies (I hope they didn’t kill her), but they had no choice to bury her with the robe, since she couldn’t let go.
After awhile a tree grew from the burial site and they had no choice but to build a church from the wood of that tree. Then later, they built a huge stone church around that wooden church.
This was the stone little church they built around her body and Christ’s robe, which his inside the larger church. Some of these stories MUST have some truth to them. Look at these behemoth stone churches!!
Can you say “burnt out”???
Here you have two of my very tired travel partners who were forced to show respect by wearing scarves AND skirts inside this church. I think they had had it with churches by this time.
Beauty everywhere I looked.
I paid a Lari (40 cents) to use this facility. I didn’t have to pay often, but when I did, it seems they were either filthy, or just a hole in the floor.
As I was walking out, an attractive white woman, about 25 or 30, had her mouth aghast and her eyes large. She was beside herself. I told her she could do it, just face the door, squat and aim for the hole and then put the toilet paper in the bucket. (At least at this place, they HAD toilet paper.)
She said it was the first time she had ever encountered these types of toilets. I assured it could be done … and then left her to her own devices.
This one was at least clean — with no standing urine on the platform.
Ah! Happy thoughts of my time in Uzbekistan. This is all we saw in Uzbekistan — mosques of blue tile and minarets. It felt so familiar. We were on a mission to make an appointment to get a massage and a Hammam scrub. This is common in Georgia and Turkey. The entire street was full of different establishments offering Sulphur pool soaks, underwater massages, facial massages, and body scrubs, etc.
Diane and Alice, travel partners, and I got Tour Guide, Nick, to come with us to help us book the services for the next day. We put it on a credit card and it came out to be $87 each. We had no idea what we booked, we reserved a room for three for an hour and a scrub and massage. But they could only do 2 massages at once and the third person would have to wait. We just crossed our fingers it would work out.
At 2 PM the next day we marched into the building. We had to pay more money for towels and a scrub glove, each. Plus we needed 20 Lari cash for the scrub.
We were put into a 2-room tiled placed with a bathroom. It had a table and three chairs. The other large room had a pool (hot tub sized), big enough for three, an overhead shower on one wall and another hip-high tiled platform with a deep sink at one end.
We knew we only had an hour, so we whipped off our clothes and each got slowly into the Sulphur hot tub. I thought I would par-boil myself it was so hot. I like it hot, but THAT was ridiculous. Plus I found it humorous that I had known these ladies for only 14 days, and now I was stark naked in a hot tub with them.
The sign clearly said we were not to stay in the sulfur tub more than 15 minutes, so we reluctantly got out, showered off and put on towels and sat around. Soon a woman who did not speak English came in with the scrubbing glove and took us one by one to be scrubbed on that hip-high tiled table/bench. And WOW, she scrubbed. That glove was like the green ScotchBright scouring pads you use for washing the dishes. I bet I came out a pound lighter from all my removed skin cells. I had a little white wart and it was half the size when she was finished with me! After the scrub she had a bag the size of a pillow case of fluffy soap inside that she flopped all over me and rubbed. Then she took a bucket from the deep sink and just threw it at me to rinse me off. Of course I was trying to keep my face dry, lest my eyelashes fell off. THEN she pointed at the ice cold shower. AUGH! Alice insisted it HAD to be cold to ‘close our pores’. When each of us was done, we sat again. We had (small) towels wrapped around us and had no idea what would happen next. The phone rings on the wall…. Diane said “Answer it.” and I did. In broken English I am told “You have 15 more minutes for the room.” I said OK, then what? Will you come get us for our massages? “No, you come upstairs and wait to be called.” I said “In our towels?” I was freaked out. “Yes”. So I said “So we should come upstairs in towels, carrying all our stuff, now?” “No!! I told you, you come in 15 minutes!!” So that’s what we did. I told the ladies I could handle it because I had been in public with much less clothing than this towel covering me, in the past. So the three of us walked down this beautiful long hall and up the stairs to a table and chairs. We seemed to have been causing a little scene.
The first picture of me is me after being scrubbed and a little bewildered. They came to get Diane and Alice for their massages, and as promised, I had to wait an hour. Again, my eyes got big. They pointed me downstairs to a little couch where I had brought reading material with me. Before sending me on my way, I asked again that they not forget me!! In about 5 minutes someone showed up with the robe. They had taken pity on me and my nakedness.
The funny thing is that while I was waiting, my sister, Cindi, butt dialed me at 7:15 AM HER time. I answered, knowing i t would be bad news but I was so happy there WAS no bad news that I didn’t care about the $10 charge for the call. Had a nice chat with her and then they came to get me for my massage. What an adventure and so worth it!!
I am basically a chicken and I am proud of myself that I got myself out of the massage, down the street, and back to the room without a hitch. Had only an hour to get ready and then we took the bus to the tram and up the mountain to a very fancy restaurant at the trop. This view was spectacular. And the food delicious.
This TV tower was at the top with us and it turned three different colors
This was our restaurant balcony as night fell. Note the full moon. Daughter, Jessie, always seems to find me no matter where I am in the world. I always feel she watching over me, smiling down on me from Heaven.
It was a Herculean effort to get butch down three tiers of steps into his wheelchair. But by this time we had all figured out our parts on how we could help, and we delivered him safely to the bottom. I was so happy he was able to join us on the tram ride to the top.
Getting home from halfway around the world is always an ordeal. But for posterity, I guess I’ll give a run down of my 35 hour trip. I was picked up by a private driver from my hotel at 11:30 PM on July 1 and arrived at my house at 3 AM July 3. I have to add the 8 hour time difference I gained by flying west, thereby making it a 35 hour trip. I left at 2:40 am from Tbilisi to Doha (Qatar). It took 3-1/2 hours. I was served a decent meal, had wine, and fell asleep.
Waiting at Doha Airport for my next flight, I hear “Atlanta” and everyone gets up and in their foreign accents starts saying “At-lon-ta”! So I get in line, presenting my passport and getting in another line and finally get to the desk at the gate and ask if there’s a restroom inside. The answer is no. So the not-nice woman says we can cancel you out of this line and you can leave and start over later, as she started to violently rip my luggage sticker off my boarding pass. DUH!! Do I really want to look like I’ve gotten into an inspection line and need to leave? No way!! I would look like I am trying to go hide something I’m illegally smuggling, or whatever. So I proceed to wait. Having to pee for 1-1/2 hours is horrible. Needless to say, I found my seat on the plane, threw my stuff in the seat and went to the bathroom. At least I was the first to use it and assumed it was cleaner than it was going to be during the flight.
Over the next 15 hour plane ride, I ate 3 meals, had 3 glasses of wine, watched 4 movies, and eventually got about 5 hours of sleep using my tried and true solution — begin exhausted. Then use noise-cancelling headphones, a total light-blocking eye mask, a plastic device to hold my head upright and a blanket over my head. It’s not a good sleep; but it’s sleep.
I got to Atlanta and breezed through Immigration with Global Entry. You stand in front of the Global Entry Kiosk, before you realize it, it has taken your picture and the screen tells you to move to the desk. The guy behind the desk says Hello Linda, you are free to go through. Of course I spent 45 minutes awaiting my suitcase. I had to re-ticket it because I was on a separate flight from Atlando to Daytona Beach, which turned out to be breeze. Slept a bit while waiting 6 hours for my plane. Finally boarded and fell asleep. I woke up to the pilot asking “Do you want to change planes or fly on this one?” Half the people said fly on this plane and the pilot said “WRONG!” That lightening you saw on the runway is considered a lightning strike and they have to inspect the plane. You have to get off and wait for the next flight. I had no faith that I would get home that night because this same type of situation happened to dad and me and we spent the night at the airport. By now I was wide awake and crocheting beanie hats. I was surprised to see a plane land, people get off and we got on.
When I arrived at Daytona Beach Airport, I don’t know why I was surprised that taxis were not waiting (as they usually are). It was 2:30 AM!! I called a cab — the same phone number it has been since 1984 when I moved to town. (386) (the FUN area code) 255-5555. Got to my driveway and realized a questionable taxi driver had me locked in the backseat where I decided I was gonna die — even after I gave him $16 tip! That didn’t happen; and I was happy to be home. Nobody said getting to and from a vacation was easy.
As usual, this was my travel haul. Playing cards, two coffee mugs, a souvenir bottle of Ararat brandy, hand-knitted baby slippers, 2 magnets from our tour guides, a lucky wooden carving and a pashmina. And a tray of dried fruits rolled in seeds for dad that I bought at that cool Armenian open market.
I hope you enjoyed your travels with me. If you’d like to comment, please do so. I am the only one who gets to read them.
Linda Jeanne