Georgia, day two

Still in Kutaisi, the morning was spent  sniffing, sampling and spending in the market - a huge covered area with rows of stalls womanned by persuasive vendors who insist on offering tasters. Caucasian food is renowned for its wide variety of health-giving and  age-defying components: fruit, nuts and grains, herbs and spices, fermented vegetables and dairy products (yoghurt, kefir, salty sheep milk cheeses) and its fresh, fruity-tasting wine. The colourful 'candles' in the picture are the ubiquitous sweetmeat called churchkelha (aka Georgian Snickers) made by dipping strings of nuts into fruit puree. The resulting  chewy-crunchy sausage is an ideal energy-booster for a  route march or shepherding foray in the high mountains. The sheets of fruit leather  on the left are another way of preserving  summer's sunshine through the winter months and hanging above are ropes of dried persimmons that taste much better than they look.

In the afternoon we walked up to the rebuilt cathedral where beeswax candles guttered beneath colourful icons and desiccated saintly remnants. Beyond lay an ancient ruined citadel, its traditional underground wine vats large enough to accommodate a person but now mostly filled with pondweed or fig trees. As we sat on a nearby cafe terrace we watched a wedding party  swing up in a hooting cavalcade, the bride emerging for her nuptials in a huge white crinoline.

And then we took a bus to Tblisi...

Extras
Have a sniff of this!
Cheese stall
Flour women
Wedding party
Huw in a wine vat
Dried saint bits
Tblisi - where is the AirBnB?