Georgia has a surprisingly diverse landscape, ranging from dry, rocky terrain to thick deciduous forests and high mountains. In the first photo you can see where a green forest gives way to a large, dry mountain, while the next shows some of the rocky and scraggly terrain I passed through. There didn’t seem to be much population in these parts of Georgia, but scattered throughout the landscape are reminders that people have lived here for centuries. The last photo shows an old castle I came across along the way.
These pictures are from around Uplistsikhe, an ancient city carved directly into the sandstone. The settlement dates back thousands of years to Georgia’s pre-Christian era, and some of its ancient ceremonial areas can still be identified today. The surrounding landscape is fairly dry and rocky, but the Mtkvari River flowing beside Uplistsikhe provided an important source of water and helped make settlement here possible.
Much of Uplistsikhe was carved directly into the rock, creating rooms, passageways, halls, and openings throughout the ancient city. Walking through the site, you can still enter many of these spaces and get a sense of how extensively the sandstone was shaped by the people who once lived here.
Uplistsikhe also had to defend itself against enemies. One of the most interesting parts of exploring the old city was descending into a tunnel that provided access through the rock and could be used as an escape route. I went down into the darkness and almost immediately could hear what sounded like hundreds of bats flying around and making noise. That certainly made exploring an ancient underground tunnel a little more interesting!
