Somehow I keep coming back in Georgia: this time I went with my friend for a two-week holiday. We stayed in a beautiful apartment in the old part of Tbilisi, a place I can really recommend anyone visiting the town. Next to that, a long-time wish came true: to see Svaneti, a mountainous region in the north-west and the highest inhabited area in the Caucasus.
Like every year, a lot had changed in the country. Every time I’m there more expensive hotels have been built and more roads are constructed or fixed. Strange architecture is arising and and questionable renovations are being carried out. The old town is falling apart and I’m afraid that the current renovations are not actually saving the buildings, but turning them into fake touristic artifacts.
In Svaneti we were wondering where they got all those construction workers and equipment, because really everywhere they were working on the road. Mestia – the main town where we stayed a few nights – was a complete mess as well. Even at night the trucks were still roaring. Anyway, this didn’t keep us from enjoying the surroundings, the villages with medieval towers and views on high mountain peaks. These defense towers at almost every house served by the way not to protect themselves from foreign attackers, but from each other: other Svan communities. Svans are an ethnic subgroup of the Georgians, but have their own language. So again within Georgia I wasn’t able to understand a word…
