Entries about people

Today's the day that myself and friends, Nick and Lins, will be travelling to Tbilisi to start our travel adventure. Packing is one of the most difficult part of the holiday as I will be travelling back by train through various countries and temperatures and not back in the UK until mid October. What to wear?

Although evening flights can be a pain - it's been nice to have a lazy start to the day, going to the Bristol Waste reuse event and coffee at Bocabar. Lunch at home before getting a lift down to the bus station to get the coach to Gatwick.

We are now in Tbilisi and ensconced in our apartment. The journey to Gatwick was smooth & traffic free with a friendly driver. Checking in our baggage, security etc was a breeze and totally free from stress. We had a four hour wait but whiled away the time eating at Wagamama & having a quick look at the shops that were closing quite early.

Take off was delayed by an hour but was a pretty uneventful flight apart from the food they served - no veggie - apparently it was the worst airline food that Nick & Lindsay had ever eaten. It was also midnight when they served it. Thank god for Wagamama.

I didn’t really sleep on the flight - and it was 4.40am GMT - Georgia is 3 hours ahead - when we got off the plane. We had a coffee whilst working out our route into the city. Decided to get the 37 bus - it took us all the way to Freedom Square where there is a tourist information. Luckily we were five minutes away from our accommodation & managed to check in early - our host was waiting & looking out for us at the end of the street.

Despite being shattered we went out to explore after making sure our phones and local SIM card was in working order. Had a massive Katchapuri - spinach & cheese. Couldn’t eat it all although it was delicious. I think we have now got the measure of where we are in the old city, after a siesta we are raring to go and do a bit more exploring starting with the city walking tour at 6pm.

We had a wander before the tour and discovered that Hollywood is in town filming Fast and Furious 9 and the boulevard where they were filming was cut off to cars and pedestrians. Apparently Vin isn’t in town. The tour was great and our guide, Levan, was entertaining and a mine of information. We now have a better idea of where everything this. We ate at a restaurant that we’d seen earlier in the day close to our ‘home’. Good food and local wine. Also tried Chacha - a Georgian spirit made from grape skins. Pretty potent stuff. Cable cars and funicular tomorrow. There is so much to do here!