In Tbilisi, Georgia, you can take a private walking tour of the city accompanied by a gang of street dogs.
You don’t know this when you book. You think you’re getting a regular Hidden Tbilisi Free Walking Tour, led, as you understand it, by a human. In my case a very snappily dressed human with a hell of a moustache, whose name is Zura. But, probably because it’s December, no other humans show up.
Zura explains that since there is a 3-person minimum, we have two options: we cancel, or I pay a small fee and have the Hidden Tbilisi tour all to myself.
I have learned to say yes to things like this.
We start on a street corner, surrounded by beautiful old dowager countess buildings. As Zura is giving me a brief but fascinating history lesson about Georgia, a street dog appears next to us, then another. They nuzzle our knees as if to say, “What’s taking you so long?”
We set off.
We slip quietly into the lobbies of private residences. We swing behind regal, once-houses-now-important buildings, into secret gardens and otherworldly courtyards. We stop at the Museum of Illusion, where I get to be 9 years old again.
Zura explains how the interiors of many of these grand old buildings got painted over during the Communist years, but are now being lovingly restored.
He points out plaques and tells me how many of them dedicated to Georgians whose lives were ended for believing in things like freedom of speech, a concept that I used to think was history. He explains how during the height of the Communist era, even children were encouraged to rat out their parents.
At each stop, the street dogs wait for us outside. They chase cars away and return to us, wagging their tails proudly.
Around 15 minutes before the tour ends, they wander off.
Zura shrugs. “I guess they already know this part.”
We take a peek inside one of the famous old bathhouses in the old city.
And then he wanders off, too. And I stand there, dumbfounded, in the midst of a thousand stories, not sure where to begin.
As you might have guessed, I came to Tbilisi alone.
Solo travel is one of my favourite things to do on this earth, especially to somewhere I’ve never been. I haven’t done it in a long time, partly for practical reasons, and partly because my partner is a great travel buddy. But I’d been noticing a sense of fear creeping in, of late. So this trip is intended as a gift to myself, and also a challenge.
I have 9 days here, to soak in the history, the art, the beauty, and the food. To open my mind and let it parachute into new ideas. To feel restored.
But right now, this feels like a privilege no one should have, let alone me.
Over the course of the next few days, I will learn more about Georgia’s history, including how many times it has been invaded. How its people have, incredibly, kept their language and culture alive, along with a kindness and easygoingness I’ve never witnessed anywhere else.
But just for today, I think about restoration.
How the restorers we saw today, working inside those old buildings, are not creating anything new. They’re just uncovering a beauty that got hidden, and almost lost—a beauty that never went away, and has been waiting patiently, after all this time, to be revealed again.
And wherever we go, dogs remind us we don't deserve them. But they do indulge us.
Happy holidays to you, wherever you find yourself.
- heydave
Dogs: natures anti-depressant. Beautiful photos also.
Best wishes, Natalie, for the holidays-- whatever form you do or don’t celebrate them in -- wishing you joy and more wonder than sadness in the coming year in a struggling world.
With love,
Carol