Day 1,484
Vani
We had deliberately ridden a shorter mileage day to leave the afternoon free to explore the Otar Lortkipanidze Vani Archaeological Museum, however a combination of bus stops, war memorials, ruined buildings and me feeling more like one of the living dead with every passing day meant it was already early afternoon before we arrived in Vani. Then we had yet another great hill to ride up to it, with full-on sun beating down on us, just for added fun. Garmin temp was 43 degrees. We checked into our hotel, handily bang next door to the museum. For £10 a night we had a room, use of an air-conditioned lounge/dining room/kitchen, a large veranda to relax in, all within a beautiful garden. By the time we'd had a shower it was past 3pm and as the museum closed at 5pm and I could barely stand, so we decided to go in the morning and either leave at midday or stay another night. After a nap, our hosts offered to cook dinner and after drinking glass after glass of water I finally started to rejoin the human race. The food was a Georgian feast, all for £5 each. We had a couple of fellow guests, Pierre, a fellow tourer and Holly, I think that's right, from Latvia. She spoke a fair few languages and became our guest house official interpreter. We spent a lovely evening, chatting away with the mum and daughter who run the hotel. It was fantastic to be able to have, with help, a proper conversation with locals.
The following morning at 10am we arrived at the museum. The museum was founded in 1985, to house the remains and artifacts of the ancient city of Vani. The area was first settled in around the 8th century BC until around 1st century AD. Over the years archaeologists have unearthed some amazing treasures. Undisturbed graves were full of gold, jewellery, pottery and artwork. The mum at the hotel described that as a child if it rained jewellery was literally washed down the hillside. The remains of old Vani are still there, a rather wobbly swing bridge gives access from the museum's gardens.
So with a fair bit of excitement we set off at 10am. Unfortunately by 10.10am I was struggling to stand and headed to bed. Tom remained to be wowed and the museum at Vani was straight in at no 3 in our Top 10 of best museums in the world so far - though we haven’t got that category in our Top 10s yet. We need another category as the web page is set up for two columns - any suggestions folks?
