Saturday

The day started with breakfast outside. Things were looking good.

The rain started an hour later, and lasted all morning. 

As lunchtime approached, I set off to explore the area heading south to Sighnaghi. By the time I got there an hour later, the rain had stopped and the sun had started to appear. Ideal.

The town was fortified with a wall around it in 1772 by Erekle II, and most of the older buildings are 18th and 19th century. With an eye to future tourism, many were renovated during the time of the Saakashvili government.  

The town is a bit of a tourism hot spot, of the day trip kind, as it is only 103 km from Tbilisi. It does look great in spite of that, however. 

I enjoyed a gentle wander around, but the highlight was a great cup of coffee (with cake) at Art Cafe Qedeli. It is a social enterprise supporting a nearby home for disabled people. They bake the cakes sold in the cafe. I had read about it in my guidebook, but when the urge for coffee hit I just went into the first attractive place I saw and it turned out to be Qedeli.  

Dinner was at the vineyard again, sitting outside on the terrace. Good local food. Good local (very local) wine. 

It will be a shock to my system to go back to the cold, dark, indoors life in Scotland. Watch out for a few gloomy Blips next week. My apologies in advance.

Spending almost 48 hours without wifi has been a positive thing, as it turns out. It gave me some real respite from the non-stop newsfeed about the crisis back in the UK. 

The Blip is a tourist cliché type shot of Sighnaghi, as is one of the Extras. The other Extra is grapes from the vineyard where I am staying. The manager gave them to me as I set off in the car. They were delicious - very small and tightly packed compared to what you might buy back home. 

[Backblipped - the advertised wifi here did not materialise]