Svaneti

Over Labor day we took advantage of the long weekend to check a large Georgian landmark off of our bucket list: Svaneti.  Svaneti is a mountainous region near the boarder that is very much removed from typical Georgian.  It is rice in culture and still holds on to some of Georgian's pagen roots.

The Svaneti towers

Mara at the Svaneti museum

We went with the organized CLO trip from the embassy.  It takes awhile to get to Svaneti so we spent the first day just in travel.  Stopping along the way we managed to get to our hotel in about 10 hours (yes 10 hours).  Going wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  The girls were troopers sleeping on the bus and doing great with being contained.

Attempt at a family shot

View of the glacier

In the morning the plan was to hike to the glacier.  Originally we thought this hike wouldn't be possible with the kids.  Our guide had just labeled it difficult without too much detail.  We probed a little further and decided that it was doable.  With the girls on our backs we made it in just less than an hour.  I'm so glad we decided to do it as the day was beautiful (one of our only good days) so it was nice to be out and getting some exercise.

Hiking to the top!

Hiking!

That afternoon we went to the ski slope and road the lift to the top.  The views were awesome from the lift and I really enjoyed our lunch at the top!


 

This ricky bridge was the worse for me

My girl always stopping to smell the flowers

The second day we drove to Ushguli, the highest village in Europe.  It was another long drive (about 3 hours) and to top it off it was rainy and cold.  I understand the mistique of visiting this village but man the drive was difficult.  The road was bad and basically all we did for 3 hours was tread pecuriously on the clift edge.  Not my idea of fun.

Once in the village we hiked through the town and up to the church.  We ducked in a little mom and pop shop to warm up and then it was back on the bus for the drive back.

View of Mestia

This horse was uninterested

The following day we started the long drive back to Tbilisi.  They always say the drive back is the hardest and this one was.  The girls again were troopers but I was just done with
being on the road.

Wet Ushguli

The tower of love

I'm so glad we went to Svaneti.  The sights, countryside, churches, etc were worth the drive.  I just wish it wasn't so jam packed in a weekend.  The long travel days made it hard.

A quick car stop on the way home....baby overals

Outside yet another museum!