Tbilisi time

My tour is open-end it might be a few years until I get to Germany again. That doesn't mean though that I cannot meet my family elsewhere and after a bit of planning, my brother and I had conclude to meet up in Tbilisi in Spring for a few days.

While he's in Tbilisi we will be staying in an AirBnB together. No doubts this will be an interesting experience for the "little" one, whose last trip outside of Europe dates back a few years :D

Sure enough I'm picking him up at Tbilisi airport, which is easy enough to reach by bus (price per person: 0.5 GEL ~= 15 cent for the 50 minutes ride) and despite his flight's stopover in Istanbul (where all flights are being moved to the brand new airport that opened just this very weekend!) the inbound flight lands with only 20 minutes delay. (Luckily at this point he doesn't know yet that he will miss his connection on the return flight, but that's another story...).

Over the next few days we will go on a guided city walking tour, explore the vicinity (Mtskheta, Jvari monastery) by mashrutka and metro, bargain with the taxi drivers, enjoy the delicious Georgian cuisine such as Khinkali, Khachapuri and stews, attend a couchsurfing mini meeting and curse at the shitty windows of our apartment which provide little to no insulation against sound (or wind) in a city that doesn't go to sleep before 4am in the morning.

Enough talk -- let's have the photos speak for themselves!

Another thing to do while in the city: route planning and visa runs.

Most cyclists I've met so far either came from or were planning to go via Armenia. But on one hand I'm not too fond of the elevation profile (I like some mountains, but 12% incline... uuuuh...? not sure about that!), and on the other hand Azerbaijan looks more interesting for me.

I'm weighing my options against each other. Even a small detour to Armenia just for a couple of days to visit Sevan lake and return to Georgia would be possible. I will decide this spontaneously.

Anyhow, the necessary visas for my next countries however are surprisingly quickly acquired:

☑ Iran e-visa: requested on 30 March, picked up at the embassy on 8 April (cost: 50 EUR)
☑ Azerbaijan e-visa: requested on 14 April, received 1 day later (cost: 24 US$)

All lights green for my next destinations! 👍