Day 20 Kvareli
The drive to Kvareli was a short one at just 40 minutes, so we killed some time checking out sights on the way, such as Gremi’s Archangels’ Complex, a 16th-century church and castle and the Kvareli Wine Cave.
The wine tunnel was built in the Soviet era to store wine and was purchased by a Georgian winery called Khareba and converted into a tourist attraction. Today, it still houses 3 million bottles of wine and has tours and tastings. We couldn’t taste as we were driving, but grabbed a couple of bottles for later sampling.
We tried to get to Ilia Lake, but Google Maps took us to a refuse dumping site; it was not the first time it had directed us down roads that don’t exist. There isn’t much to see in Kvareli, so we headed to our local accommodation called Isev Guesthouse. This time, it was Agoda leading us up the wrong path, as this was not the room I’d booked and had nothing in it.
Fortunately, the hospitality at the family restaurant was superb despite the language barrier. We were given free bottles of their homemade wine, and they helped with a flat tire the following morning.
Day 21 Sighnaghi
An hour’s drive down the valley took us to the small touristy mountain town of Sighnaghi, which was very popular with day trippers from Tbilisi.
The old cobbled streets, castle and walls, and tourist shops and cafes were very picturesque and a fitting end to the trip. We sampled a wine ice cream at the lookout point and were given a liter of home-made qveiri wine at our guesthouse, where we were the only guests.
Like many places we’d visited, it was pretty dead after dark, being out of season, so we stayed at the guesthouse, enjoying the wine and ambience before it got too cold!
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Next: Tbilisi
