Rainsoaked Tbilisi, National & Folk Museums, Sauna

Saturday, April 20, 2019

Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Georgia

Saturday I had a full day to spend in Tbilisi before starting my day trips. I slept in and left my apartment by 11am due to the rains and overnight sleeper train the previous night.

I was going to walk to Avlabari metro across the river and go two stops up. I was trying to get to the travel agent to pick up my train ticket to Baku, Azerbaijan for when I left Georgia.

Tbilisi is one of the scary deep Soviet metro's I'm not comfortable with. I dont know what they do in an emergency if someone is ill.

see youtube vid - https://youtu.be/qZCf5-rwONI

The rains were heavy again and I had a 25 min walk to get to the travel agent. I couldnt figure out a bus route from the metro station. After all the walking in the rain they were closed today. I found a nearby bank that had wifi and to get out of the rain. I tried to email them but they didnt respond right away.

Trekking back in the rain I continued on with my plan as I just remembered they said they do hotel delivery so I will message them later. Past the Opera House was the Kashueti Church

A few blocks later was the National Museum where I could finally dry out from the rain for a bit after being soaked thru. Entrance was 7 GEL ($3.50)

There didnt seem to be as much as I thought there would be and I was done pretty quickly. Nor did they have any free wifi to see if the travel agency responded.

Heading back to the centre I made it to Republic Square. I was then to go on a side street to get to the Folk Museum. Entrance was 3 GEL ($1.50).

Like the Folk Museum in Yerevan this is somewhere most tourists do not come so was empty and very interesting in the variety of displays despite being a small museum.

Outside was a chinese restaurant where I was able to get some cheap warm noodles to warm me up from the rains. I then found a tourist restaurant street also rained out.

Nearby was a landmark crooked clock and another local church.

I made my way across the modern Peace Bridge, another new landmark with its interesting design.

I came back to my apartment to rest, warm up, and dry out. Later I heard some commotion outside as a wedding ceremony had just completed at the Mosque.

That evening I wanted to try out a sauna to warm up after the weather. I'd read mixed information online about which to goto since there are quite a few to choose. The one I went to was 15 GEL ($7.50). I'd read this wasn't 'touristy'. I see why as it was run down with fat old men and seemed creepy. Perhaps I should have paid for the touristy ones.

Later at 11.15pm there was constant banging on my door waking me up when I was so tired. The owner of the apartment had come by to check if everything was ok. Really, at 11.15pm?! He also wanted payment so you had to pay in cash and not credit card. I was also messaging my tour for tomorrow trying to arrange where pickup would be.