The good news....

....is that the path up to Tbilisi TV tower, past the Mamadaviti (St David's Church) has been renovated. It is vastly, but vastly better, with handrails, cobbled paths, steps....I'd hate to think of the poor folk who had to carry the cobbles up there.

The bad news is that just at St David's Church there's a gap, currently being worked on, and essentially you have to walk up a storm drain, with a very scary little set of steps to get you out of it. I thought that only the most athletic people would attempt this, and I would not want to run the hash up here, what with some of the folk not far off the three-score and ten. Then I spotted a lot of young folk on the path above this gap, and you know what young Tbilisi women are like - all high heels and glitter. And they had done it! (I watched some of them going back down). So, no excuses for anyone!

Once you've bridged the gap, and have got to the top, it would appear that there is a further, nicely put together path which takes you all around a valley and back into town. Quite a long walk, I would think, but most of it downhill. And there are picnic spots and exercise areas. Lovely idea. Hope they stay unvandalised and tidy for a while.

At the top, behind the TV tower, there's now a fenced-in leisure park. (The photo does not entirely capture the tastelessness of it. And why are the welcome flags in all languages but Georgian?) I have a feeling it might belong to the late Mr Paatarkatsishvili, and of course there's trouble with his will. So the park is locked up and totally deserted. Mind you, so is most of that area. I walked for four hours, from my flat, up past the TV tower, to a fancy new housing development way out in the countryside, up to a ridge, near which I found the start of another large building in the middle of no-where (see photo) and back down again. After 3.5 hours I met another walker.....but boy, it was soo cold up there! And this is June, in Tbilisi!

Noticed that the cows wear bells made from piston-heads, and very tuneful they were, too. There's a use for everything.