Sightseeing around Gurjaani

The Orthodox Church is by far the most predominant faith in Georgia, and we saw a lot of churches!

This was our first, a short drive from our host family's home.  Churches are always at the top of a hill or mountain, because it's good for you spiritually to work hard to get there...

A beautiful view!

Guka and the view.

 Lali, Ahneka, Me, and Maka

Most of the churches are very old... this was no exception

 Inside the church.... lighting candles at the icon of choice.  There is a really deep respect for the church, women had to cover their heads (if you didn't bring one you could choose from the scarves provided), and there were no pants allowed... even for Guka.

Inside the church.  I gathered from later visits to churches that picture taking inside of a church is pretty frowned on, so these are the only inside pictures I have of churches.  

 Outside the church

 We followed a nearby path down the hillside, that led to the spring.  Usually there is a spring near the churches and it is thought to be very good for you to drink from the spring.

 These are old wine making pots, (Qvevri) that Guka was anxious to show us.  

We made another trip the next day, this time a little further away and with Mako driving a Keti and Mari along.  This is the Bodbe Monastery where the patron saint of Georgia (St. Nino) is buried.  We saw her tomb, but no pictures, as it wasn't allowed.   

 There was a church and monastery (we couldn't visit that part) and the grounds were very pretty.

There was always a lot of fixing and construction on the churches because of how old they are.

The view from the top, before we went down many many steps to St. Nino's spring.

We didn't actually get a chance to drink from the spring because there was a huge line of people... almost American!  This was a cute little boy there.  

Really, the most exciting part of the trip was the car ride back up!  Mako brought the car down so that we wouldn't have to climb, but the road was AWFUL!  It was about as wide as one car, and full of boulders... not just little rocks but boulders!  It was also really steep and full of swithchbacks, so the most exciting part was when we were going around one of the turns at full Mako-speed and we met someone coming down!  Ahneka and I both just closed our eyes and prayed!!