After my five hours journey from Ushguli to Lentekhi over the Zagaro pass, I realized I was quite exhausted and would not be able to ride my bike for a couple of days. Strong enough reason to continue driving further to Kutaisi and then Tbilisi... at least there would be many things to do in the capital while resting and stretching my sore muscles. I met Natalia again there and, when I had sort of recovered, we decided to spend a couple of days in Kazbegi region.Kazbegi is another valley in the High Caucasus but nothing to do with Svaneti in terms of accessibility. There is a good paved road all the way, called the Georgian Military Highway, which connects Tbilisi with Vladikavkaz in Russia. This is the main transit point between Russia and all countries in the Southern Caucasus, receiving many tourists from both sides. I met a Dutch guy who had just flown into Tbilisi, rented a car and drove to Stepantsminda (the main town in Kazbegi). He was complaining that the roads were very bad and dangerous... it took him 4h while it took me 2.5h and I did not drive very fast... but I had had some previous training in Italy, Greece, Turkey and other Georgian areas!

The main thing to do around Stepantsminda is hiking to Tsminda Sameba church. It dominates the entire valley from the hill it was built on, about 500m above the village. This cross was erected right in front of the church and it is written in Georgian, a language that uses its own script created around the 5th century AD (thanks Sophie for the correction).

That church was a real building challenge and nowadays a magnet for tourists, something that the original designers probably did not have in mind. It was made of dark and red porous stones with many carvings, such as the following window with its frame plus a cross and a couple of reptiles. Some guidebooks say they are dinosaurs but I think they are just small lizards...

On the following day, in the morning, we woke up to a great sight. The Tsminda Sameba church and Mount Kazbek were virtually free of clouds and they were perfect partners for a picture. Just reminding you that the mountain stands 5.034m above sea level and the church a mere 2.170m... which is probably much higher than any church in Europe...

On our way back to Tbilisi, we stopped by Ananuri monastery/fortress. This is one of the most famous sights in Georgia and was used by Lonely Planet's guide for the three Caucasus countries as its cover picture. The site was originally a monastery but practical issues forced the construction of a wall around it, which actually improves the overall impression except for one of the church walls whose carvings are partially covered by a defensive tower.

And that was the Georgian Military Highway, no problem at all. We would have liked to explore the adjacent valleys to Kazbegi but those roads are really bad, sometimes not even suitable for 4WD cars but only horses and pedestrians. Then it becomes either very expensive to hire private cars or very time consuming to do it on foot, so we decided to go back to Tbilisi and do nothing for a few more days...
Well, we actually did a couple of things but you will have to read about them in the next post.
Ciao!