Day 8- I hate stairs

This morning we were very sad to leave Kutaisi and the Gora Hotel where we were staying.  The Gora Hotel was one of the best hotels that we stayed at.  The owner showed us a room from each floor and kept showing us different rooms until we were satisfied.  What's interesting is that we were just regular clients for him, but he treated us as if we were some VIP personnel.

The hotel itself was beautiful.  A lot of buildings in Georgia look very worn, either from age or lack of care, and we were getting used to chipped paint and broken tile.  However, this hotel stood out with the fresh paint, gleaming tile, comfortable beds and wonderful furnishings.  It was clear that the owners cared about the place.

The food was also fantastic and the owners joined us for the meals and were the life of the party, which made the hotel feel a lot more like home.

When we were leaving and checking out, the hotel owner ran up to say goodbye and handed us a 'little bottle of wine' which held about three liters, just because my mom liked his wine.  It was homemade wine, too.

So, with a giant jug of wine, we went to explore Bagrat and Gelati temples.  Bagrat had fascinating architecture and was renovated beautifully.

Due to technical difficulties, the Bagrat and Gelati sections of this post could not be posted, but will be added in a few hours.

We then explored Kutaisi some more, which was a beautiful city.

When we arrived at Mestia, my mother and I decided to go explore one of the defense towers.  There I discovered my fear of extremely vertical rickety wooden stairs.

  To my misery, there were six flights of them.  I went up somewhat decently, but much like a cow, could not get back down. After much inward swearing, I started going down, but I was terrified.  On the fifth flight down, with one more to go, my nerves were taut.

As I stepped onto the fifth flight, I heard a dog bark behind me.  Now, I've also got a fear of dogs, especially barking ones.  So, when I heard the dog bark, my mind was filled immediately with images of the dog viciously tearing up my ankles.  Naturally, I emitted a blood-curdling scream.  Silence followed, but then I heard a sad whine.  Apparently I scared the dog with my scream.  Once my mom and I were able to stop laughing, I apologized to the dog and cuddled it.  I think the dog realized that I was not very good with stairs and decided to show me how stairs worked, because it followed me down the last flight of stairs and kept nudging me down whenever I stopped.