While I felt much better in the morning, another of our group got The Bug in the night, so slept all day. We had a fine breakfast of pancakes and local honey, ham, rolled crepes with a cream cheesy filling, loaf bread (not the usual flat bread we have had every other place), omelet, and always always the cucumbers and tomatoes with every meal. Afterward, two of our number wanted to hike up to a cross on the highest mountain-hill here. I didn’t go. The heat is intense and the climb steep. It’s a good thing. Even Better Half stopped half way up. Maria, on another of her short cuts, scrambled blindly through the trees, following her Google Maps directions, and made it to the top with considerable effort. There is a ROAD going up there! But do we do anything the easy way? Anyway, the view was spectacular.
These are her photos.
The goal reached
The view. Tower town.
360 panorama
The walk getting to and from, looking toward where we were yesterday.
The river running through the town
Bell tower under construction
Old part of town, stone, stone, and stones
Ubiquitous cows
Quintessential Mestia. From Soviet days. This is still in use.
Today was also souvenir shopping day. We found some fine handcrafts in walk through town.
Across the road was a shop with a sign: Meat, Beef. She didn’t care.
Porch railing on an eating establishment.
A whole series, all different.
Intricate saw-work is popular here.
Drive carefully.
If you look closely, you can see the Georgian alphabet throughout this pattern. The Georgians consider their unique alphabet an integral part of their identity and a national treasure. It is very old, has three forms- old, middle, and modern styles - and seems something like a mix of Hindi and Persian in form. They have a base 20 numbering system, too complicated to describe, partly with numerals, but also with numerical values ascribed to letters. They are extremely frugal with vowels, and have whole strings of consonants run together, sometimes nine disparate ones in a row and you get figure out the vowel sounds between. (You will get it wrong. A Georgian will say it entirely different.) Prckvna (to peel) is an example of a simple consonant cluster; but that one has at least some blends. Others don’t. The Poles and Arabs like to think they have complicated languages, but the Georgians have them well beaten.
No comments:
Post a Comment