Beneath the Many Icons

Airbnb has you residing in neighborhoods.  It’s hard to discern just what kind of neighborhood it is going to be.  We had booked a place base on the interior and the roof garden all of which were splendid and as promised, but street was a rough-and-tumble collection of small markets and stores at an angle.  Coming from our neighborhood in St Petersburg though, the market was well stocked and clean inside and while not as decidedly post modern as the joint in Moscow, it was a pleasure to shop in. 

I let the family rest and headed out on my own down through the underpass and across the main street.  Below there were cheap shops and people begging above.  They had pomegranate juice for sale and signs with pictures advertising different places the taxis might take you.  Georgia is famous for wine and now tourists must all ask for it because every other store was a wine store as I continue d along unclear as to precisely where I was going, my GPS basically inoperable. 

The Metekhi Church was there on a cliff.  I walked around, spending more time that I probably should have, considering the young ladies in a wedding party in the entrance.  Out the back was the statue of King Vakhtang Gorgsali and this perch afforded me my first view down to the Mtkvari River and over across to the cliffs of Tiflis.  I looped back through the wedding party once again. Back inside an old woman swept up the floor beneath the many icons.  A priest  spoke aloud, unintelligibly.

Down in the Rike Park I could hear a band warming up and decided to make my way over, passing them en route to the bridge.  A guy started rhyming in English and they sounded fresh and like some authentic fusion,  hip hop but when they stopped and didn’t start again.  I waited for a bit trying to discern which among them had been they rapper, but got tired of waiting and decided to move on across the transparent, geodesic Peace Bridge and head on in to the old town. 

I stepped down into the remarkable Anchiskhati Basilica, a are older building than anything else I'd seen, dating back to the fifth century.   A peer of the Hagia Sophia this was infinitely older than any building you can find standing in China.  Older than any church I can recall seeing in Western Europe as well.  I sat and soaked in the mournful interior and reemerged into the heat.  

Now I'm across the street at a lovely, air conditioned cafe to sip local wine and charge my phone. 

Monday 7/09/18