Tales Of Georgia

[merlin]

Tales of Georgia​

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This was a highlight of our time in Georgia, it's an ancient 6th to 12th century town built into a mountain, it housed 60,000 at it's peak with thousands of dwellings.
Queen Tamar though called King despite being a woman, lived here and evidently had 365 bedrooms, so she slept in a different room each night of the year, for security reasons.

Tamar the Great (Georgian: თამარი) (c. 1160 – 18 January 1213) reigned as the Queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213, presiding over the apex of the Georgian Golden Age. A member of the Bagrationi dynasty, her position as the first woman to rule Georgia in her own right was emphasized by the title mepe ("king"), afforded to Tamar in the medieval Georgian sources.

Georgia has always been a Christian country, (after it's pagan period) and the town had many churches mostly ruins caused by erosion and collapsing stonework over the centuries, several monks still reside in the monastery, and the whole place is a true wonder, it was an 8 hour round trip by car and is a few miles from the border with Turkey. The region is much colder than the rest of Georgia and was around 40f while we were there.

Here are some photos I took...

Posing for a photo on a balcony......​

This is part of the remains of the monastery

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For some reason I love this photo, it seems to convey so much wonder

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[Keesha]

Truly fascinating photos Merlin. The story that goes with it, just as interesting.
That must be amazing there.
Great photo of you.
Thanks for sharing

 

[jujube]

Love your photos, Merlin. The cave dwellings look like those at Goreme, Turkey even down to the faces on many religious wall paintings obliterated. Must have been the same influence.

 

[NancyNGA]

Amazing pictures Merlin. What an interesting place. Thanks for posting them.

 

[Falcon]

Thanks for the photos and history lesson Merlin. I learned a lot.

 

[RadishRose]

Spectacular scenes, Merlin. Thanks!

 

[SeaBreeze]

Excellent photos and very interesting story Merlin, thanks for sharing!

 

[merlin]

Here is a video I took of one of the many tunnels inside the mountain, there are literally miles of them... ignore the sound, the camera is worn out and on it's last legs, but I can't afford a new one at the moment

This is the original water storage reservoir for the town deep inside the mountain, but it was nowhere near large enough, so they built a pipe/aqueduct system from another source a few miles away, which gave them hundreds of gallons of water a minute.....

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