We're Marianne and Chris and we've been travelling full-time since 2018.
We're currently spending a few weeks in the country of Georgia.
A country with fantastic mountain views,
crazy roads,
and even crazier driving!
You can't see ..... what is that?!
And let's not forget unusual architecture,
delicious food,
and cows on the road.
After our wonderful walk round the fortress,
and spending the afternoon editing and catching up on a few bits,
we slept here again last night in fact it was a bit of a crazy night's sleep!
The dogs kind of kept us awake,
that's one of them, the cat tried to get in the van about five o'clock this morning through the roof hatch!
And there was meowing so Marianne got up and fed it at five o'clock this morning!
So we're feeling slightly sleep deprived this morning,
but this morning we're excited because we are heading to a very cool monastery!
It's so much more than a monastery and we can't wait to show it it's about 25 minutes from here, so let's hit the road!
Oh it's a lovely road here going through this valley along the mountains,
we're nearly there but i just wanted to share this with you,
look at that in fact!
In fact it's roads like this ....
that when i get questions saying where do you want to live? Where do you want to settle down?
This is why i don't want to settle down this is why i want to live in a van!
Because that is extraordinary!
Exactly ..... variety is the spice of life!
Yeah baby
Not that sort of variety!
So we're just coming into Vardzia!
And you can see the monastery in the cliff face there.
So we have arrived at the Vardzia cave monastery,
you can see it in the cliffside behind us.
It's located in the southern central region of Georgia and it's just over four hours drive from Tbilisi.
We're all ready to go ....
got ya!
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Back to the show!
I actually bought a pair of hiking boots when we were in Turkey but they're a little bit tight because they're not fully worn in yet,
so I'm afraid i've got the sandals and socks scenario going on today!
I'm very ashamed to say that i think it's probably the first time i've ever done it!
Don't be ashamed you are setting trends!!
They're comfortable anyway,
so i just asked Marianne whether she's got her mask because a lot of it is indoors today....
I'm colour coordinated !
Green mask, green top!
We are both trend setting today!
There's a fashion thing going on right there ...
and if the fashion police are watching? Leave now!
So at the bottom they've got a little restaurant and some little shops here,
fresh juice there you go look.
Ticket office ...
so this is the entrance here.
The monastery opens at 10 a.m every morning,
all year but the closing time varies depending on the season.
Yeah it's the same guy!
This is the same guy was at the fortress yesterday!
17 GEL for 2 people
They operate a one-way system because it's a maze of tunnels and rooms,
you have to follow the flow, otherwise in busy high season it would get very hectic!
So it's not about covid? it's about getting lost?
Yes!
And i get lost anyway, yes!
I did see online that they recommend taking these things up the hill to save your legs,
there's nobody in it otherwise maybe i would consider it,
but we need the exercise this morning we've just got up!
but I need to save my legs!
That's where we're going
It's a huge complex of man-made caves,
in fact it would be an underground cave city.
It was inhabited from the bronze age and it was a defensive tunnel system from between the 11th to the 13th centuries.
We're looking at around this massive structure,
and i'm noticing as we're walking towards it in the rock there's like channels that look like they've been worn away over time?
and i said to Chris, maybe this is where the water would have come out .... maybe the toilets,
or the washing water or a river maybe yeah it came off the mountains and that's where it would have washed?
Originally back in the day, if you'd stood here and looked at this cliff face ...
you wouldn't have seen all these holes,
this is a result of a big earthquake,
years ago some of the mountain side slipped away revealing what was inside.
I could see the golf cart coming up if i'd known that we would have got a lift!
You can see how big this dwelling was,
because there's rooms in the cliffs all the way!
All the way along as far as the eye can see!
It's an absolutely massive structure and complex ...... mind blowing!
Talking about erosion .... Marianne was right!
Water reservoir ..... these structures here were for water!
So we've nearly climbed to the top, you can see little Trudy van parked down at the bottom there.
That is a good bit of exercise this morning !
It's a lovely walk, it's very steep but the the pathway is actually really easy to to navigate there's no rocks or steps,
it's just sort of like a nice smooth pathway.
And i'm glad it's not too sunny today, we woke up this morning and saw that it was a cloudy day,
and thought oh it's cloudy!
but actually you know i'm pretty pleased that it's not full blaring sun whilst we're walking up this hill today.
It's going to be impossible to pick up on the camera,
but we can hear so many birds!
It seems like this place is an absolute refuge for birds,
and in the distance we can even hear birds of prey!
Back in its heyday, this place had 6,000 different rooms,
on 19 levels!
Today there is 641 separate chambers,
over 13 levels,
with tunnels some of them are over 200 meters long!
I don't think we're going to be able to show you every single room today,
but we're going to give it a good shot and show you as much as we can!
Here's the first room, wow it's huge!
Absolutely nuts!
This must be the highest i mean like the tallest level,
I don't know i think so!
But this would have all been covered and you wouldn't have had this magnificent view.
But it's huge with tunnels absolutely everywhere!
Different rooms it's hard to imagine that these were all carved out by man thousands of years ago!
And the people lived in here,
what a crazy thought!
In fact this place would have got some light from there, which would have had a little window in the side of the rock face i'm assuming??
That would have brought some light in.
I would assume actually these are all escape tunnels?
Yeah from under attack, so they can jump off into little rooms.
And the black on the ceiling would have been where the kitchen areas were.
Yeah, and ...... guess what!?
I reckon Marianne's going to tell you what's that love?
Water ...... water storage!
I think it might have been for wine?
I can live in caves!
We just saw this very cool looking walkway down on the the side of the hill here,
and it's blocked off you can't get to it but we've just figured out there's tunnels everywhere
and i think further along the line we're going to pop out on one of these levels down below.
Wow we've just walked through to the other side and this view is breathtaking!
Look at these tunnels, walkways on the edge of this cliff here looking down..... absolutely stunning!
These tunnels just keep going on and on!
Which way?
These tunnels go on forever!
I think we're going the right way .....
we took the wrong turn!
That is a ventilation shaft!
I think that's coming from the chapel or the monastery, because i can smell that incense!
Okay back down this way!
So we've come to this walkway,
Just to give you a perspective,
it's actually almost vertically down,
it really is!
Marianne's there and then it's down there
Chris has got black trousers, but he's going down on his backside because this is .....
absolutely crazy!
I'm going to treat it like a boat and go the other way!
I think that's a great idea ....
slowly ...
It is alright, i'm a mountain goat! mountain goat ?
Well we're definitely getting the steps in today!
Oh my lord! What a crazy walkway!
This is nuts
and then look, we're on the edge there!
Slowly working our way down.
You can see all the tunnels and things,
and we're going down that way.....
Are your legs aching yet? No because i'm so scared of the heights and blown away by the beauty!
It's such a mind-blowing experience that I can't think about my legs yet!
Okay let's go down a bit more!
We hope you enjoyed this episode? Wasn't that just the most amazing place?
You're not going to want to miss the next episode,
where we try to leave Georgia to head back into Turkey .......
but as with all van life sometimes things just don't go according to plan!
Make sure you click the subscribe button,
and the thumbs up so you don't miss the next episode ....
Bye