{"id":6483,"date":"2019-07-15T10:34:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T18:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/?p=6483"},"modified":"2019-08-31T10:32:40","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T18:32:40","slug":"georgia-armenia-trip-july-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/?p=6483","title":{"rendered":"Georgia & Armenia Trip, July 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For my 59th<\/sup> birthday, my wife Linna worked with local Georgian guide Davit Berishvili to provide a well-balanced 10 day journey that included hiking, site-seeing, food\/wine tasting and culture gathering.\u00c2\u00a0We invited our good friend Michael Curry to join us on this truly once in a life-time vacation packed excursion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be our first vacation\/journey that we hired a professional guide for the duration of a trip and looking back at it now, I am so pleased that Linna organized it that way.\u00c2\u00a0 There would have been a language barrier at many of the locations and restaurants we visited.\u00c2\u00a0Also, there is a unique way of driving in Georgia, similar to China\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.there are no set of road lines or rules.\u00c2\u00a0 People will pass with on-coming traffic and at the same time deal with local cattle wandering on the road.\u00c2\u00a0But, we were so fortunate to have the best tour guide in Georgia\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Gaga Chechelashvili.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only was he a safe aggressive driver, but also a fun tour guide and a true gentleman.\u00c2\u00a0Gaga picked us up at the Tbilisi airport in his 4×4 right hand drive Mitsubishi Pajero.\u00c2\u00a0Not sure, but maybe 1 in 10 cars were right hand drive purchased from Japan because of their excellent condition and reliability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Beautiful village of Mestia, Georgia. The Svan tower homes were family living quarters and offered protection to their owners and to their livestock. Usually 4 to 5 floors with the first floor lacking of doors or windows. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Rick Freeman & Mike Curry hiking from Mestia to a tiny village of Tsvirmi. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Having beers with Gaga Chechelashvili and Mike Curry at the farm house in Tsvirmi. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Village<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We toured Baia’s Winery. Once the grapes are harvested, everything (seeds, stems, skins & juice) is tossed into a Qvevri which a very large clay pot buried in the ground. This method of wine making in Georgia has been recorded by archaeologists back to 6000 BC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Clay pots are buried at Baia’s Winery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I purchased a bottle of Tsitska Tsolikouri at Baia’s Winery…this is a dry white wine. I am with the wine maker Gvanca Abuladze.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mike Curry, Rick Freeman and Linna Freeman in front of Shkhara Glacier. We hiked from the village of Ushguli.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Bridge of Peach that is 490 feet long that connects the old Tbilisi with the new district.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Villige<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Many of the farm\/guest houses that we stayed in had wood fired stoves for cooking and keeping warm.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my 59th birthday, my wife Linna worked with local Georgian guide Davit Berishvili to provide a well-balanced 10 day journey that included hiking, site-seeing, food\/wine tasting and culture gathering.\u00c2\u00a0We invited our good friend Michael Curry to join us on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[762,763,30,607,766,671,761,581,765,687],"class_list":["post-6483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-trips","tag-gaga-chechelashvili","tag-gvanca-abuladze","tag-linna-freeman","tag-linna-freeman-seattle","tag-mestia","tag-mike-curry-seattle","tag-republic-of-georgia","tag-rick-freeman-seattle","tag-svan-towers","tag-wanderjunkie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5jXSd-1Gz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6483"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6550,"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483\/revisions\/6550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wanderjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}