Tbilisi, day 5

No luck on the camera front.

Had a look at the former Hotel London not far from the hostel.

One of the nice stories of today: We were on the way to a restaurant to have dinner with a few people. We got lost wandering around the old town, searching for a specific place. A courtyard struck us a exceptionally full of character and we took some pictures, then decided to sneak up some stairs to have a look at the place from a different perspective. We came to a balcony spanning along three sides of the building we were in. There were people around, of course, and we asked if it was OK to have a quick look. The guy we asked had no objections and even told us to go around the next corner where we met a lady who happily told us all about the history of the beautiful house. Erlend, being fluent in Russian, interpreted for the rest of us. The house was about 150 years old and used to be an accountants school, or something similar. The entire building was owned by a single gentleman back then. During Soviet times the large rooms were split up into individual flats, with shared kitchen and bathroom across the balcony in an adjacent building. So, the point of the story? Instead of being suspicious or annoyed about our showing up on their doorstep, or even kicking us out, these people were happy to see some folks being interested in their house/city/country and took the time off from whatever they were doing to talk to us and answer all our questions. That’s just another tiny example of the amazing Georgian hospitality.

Inside beautiful but defunct Hotel London

The backyard. The picture doesn't really do it justice.