RollingRocco

Our last night in Georgia was quite eventful. We have chosen a spot in Javakheti National Park at the lake, 3 km to Kartsakhi border.  Beautiful view and very peaceful, little did we know that later that night around 10 pm we will have a visit from border police that kindly asked us to move because it's a border zone. So they pointed a fuel station that we can sleep at. We asked 3 guys that were drinking beer at the station if it's ok we sleep here they said ok ( a small fee to be paid in the morning to the station worker). After 30 minutes whe almost falling a sleep a car with loud music decide to park next to us( the parking was huge, plenty of space 🤣), no worries let's wait. Them gone, after 10 minutes a huge lorry parks 10 cm from us at this point we said no and because we were awake and annoyed we went straight to the border. At least the custom officers were all friendly and after 30 minutes we were in Turkey. Found a quiet place and finally at 1.30 am ...

È un territorio storicamente appartenente al gruppo etnico degli armeni. Noi ci siamo passati perché stiamo andando verso il confine con la Turchia. Ci sono tanti laghi incastrati nel paesaggio che assomiglia alla steppa mongola.L' immense praterie con le colline situate al altezza di 2000m. Qui la povertà non è piu mascherata dall' turismo. Raramente le persone ci salutano perché sono sotto shock quando li salutiamo in georgiano e per scaldarsi visto che c'è mancanza di alberi si usa lo sterco essiccato.  La nostra l'ultima tappa prima di lasciare la Georgia era Vardzia. Vardzia e un monastero rupestre scavato nel fianco del monte Erusheti, sulla riva sinistra del fiume Kura.  Tutta la valle e molto pittoresca e ci siamo concessi 2 notti qui al fiume Kura.  In preparazione per andare in Turchia abbiamo fatto l' ultima spesa, riempito il gasolio che qui è meno costoso 0.90 centesimi al litro e ...

Non tutti lo sanno ma Georgia è considerata la culla del vino, con una storia millenaria nella produzione vinicola, risalente a circa 8.000 anni fa. Si cari amici - i georgiani hanno iniziato a fare vino prima degl' italiani!La regione del Kakheti, nell'est del paese, è il cuore della produzione vinicola georgiana, responsabile di circa il 70% della produzione totale. La Georgia vanta una grande varietà di vitigni autoctoni, tra cui il Saperavi (rosso) e il Rkatsiteli (bianco), e utilizza metodi di vinificazione tradizionali, come la fermentazione e la maturazione in qvevri (anfore di terracotta interrate).  Non siamo riusciti a fare la degustazione presso una piccola cantina (anche se c'è ne sono tantissime).Abbiamo provato un paio di giorni prima a contattare una che ho scelto ma alla fine non ci hanno cagati. Quindi siamo andati in due cantine che l'abbiamo trovato sulla strada e ci siamo trovati benissimo. Eravamo curiosi di assaggiare il vi...

Our time with Avto was coming to the end so we decided to chill at the river on the last day. Found a great spot where Franco tried fishing ( no luck but some georgian guys gave us coregone fish as a gift 🙂).  We also picked up some blackberries and made marmalade 😋. Avto convinced us to continue to ABUDELAURI LAKES. He unfortunately had to go back home on Friday but would meet us in place on Saturday because he had a tourist group booked for trekking there. So we could just follow the group. Wow 😲!!! This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to.  It's not so popular as other spots maybe because of a difficult road but so worth the journey!!! At the evening we had a whole place to ourselves as not every camper can get here, you will need a 4x4. I have noticed that we had a bit of the sleeping problems because of the high altitude but I was overjoyed to sleep with a duvet and open windows😀! We were curious to s...

Next day after a hearty breakfast Avto took us to visit Juta valley. The mountains here are often called Georgian Dolomites.  The trail was a bit harder(not for the Chinese lady though doing it in flip-flops 😂😂). We were struggling a bit but mostly because of the  hot weather. Yeas we are at more than 2000m a.s.l but the sun here is mercifulless. I was already tanned but still got a bit of the sun burn! So after 2 days  we were ready for a real badass trail. Mount Kazbegi known as a queen of the valley welcomed us with a clear view on her peak so we could admire her majesty🙂.  It was really hard going  800 m up and than 800m down but we did it!!!For Avto it seemed effortless 🤣🤣. Where we camped in the night we had an amazing view on one of the most picturesque churches - Gergeti Trinity Church.  Sadly instead of a place for reflection it became a mass tourism destination to make selfies and ph...

Before starting the journey to KAZBEGI we stopped at Rustavi to pick up our own personal guide and friend Avto 🙂. As it sometimes work out in the world, we have a friend who has a Georgian friend and the friend of the friend has a brother that lives in Georgia. No, actually Avto funny enough normally lives in Poland but in the summer comes back home to work as a  guide.  The Kekua family has welcomed us with open heart and we felt immediately at home. Thank you Maja for the delicious food and Pablo for the homemade wine and the painting😘. So after the lovely evening, the next morning we were ready to escape the heat of the city. Kazbegi National Park probably is the most visited park because it's easy accessible from Tbilisi ( the capital). The road is extremely picturesque but also very busy as it finishes at the only open border crossing to Russia.You get a majority of chinese, russian and israelian tourists with a minor dose of Europeans. The road is trafficke...

The road to Racha region kind of reminded us of Val d'aveto road back at home apart from the hairpin turns at the beginning.  We stopped by the road to fill the water bottles and meet Temuri, who started to chat with us in English and than turned out speaks several languages including some Polish. He totally caught us of guard offering us red local wine that he just went to get from the winery and than also gave us a bottle of homemade cha cha ( grappa).We weren't prepared for so much hospitality 🙂👍. Thank you Temu for being so kind to us! There are several wineries close to Ambrolauri but it was late and we just wanted to get to our final destination. We still have time to discover Georgian wine. Finally we arrived at Shaori lake situated at 1300 m. It is known for it's trout but looking at all the fisherman camping at the river bank with at least 3 fishing rods per person we weren't that convinced to give it a try.  So instead we went cycling...