Wow!  We really lucked out with the weather!!

And check out what my new zoom lens can do:

We woke up this morning at the Kabadoni Hotel, a nice, modern place overlooking the vine-covered Kakheti wine region of Georgia.  Breakfast was included, and we happily spent the first two hours of our day in the sunny dining room.  We had cappuccinos, fruit, croissants, blinis, homemade cherry jam, cheese, salami, and omelettes the size of a car tire.  They were huge!  Jake and Eli had raisin bran, and managed to only break one glass.  As usual, we were the only people in the dining room, but that was okay because it meant we had the whole buffet to ourselves.  After all that food, we were ready for a walk!

Let’s go this way!

Look, a castle.  The world is really full of castles, isn’t it?

The world is also full of stray dogs and weeds and cars leaking gasoline, but somehow Europe cleans up that part.  Maybe that’s why their castles are more popular as tourist attractions then the ones here?

We also went into the church, St. Stephans’, also known as Stepentsminda:

We lit beeswax candles and thought again about the peace and serenity found in these small village churches.  There is always a babushka minding the place.  She sweeps the floor and accepts donations, and remind us ladies to cover our heads with a shawl.  Outside in the courtyard, there were bees and butterflies, and a nice tree where we all sat for a few minutes so the boys could watch bugs.  Back at our hotel again, we had lunch outside on the terrace.

In the center of the table is an old water bottle, called Borjomi after a famous Caucasian village that is known for its natural mineral springs.  It is kind of an acquired taste, very bubbly and very salty.  They have it all over the former USSR, but I swear it tastes better here at its source!  Anyway, you can see here that the bottle is purple.  See next entry for the source of our homebrew.