Ananuri fortress at the lake

We head down from the mountains of northern Georgia it is a pretty drive through the mountains with a few small villages with old Georgian churches sprinkled around the small villages.

After a bit of driving we get to a little lake a short drive north of Tbilisi. We go out to have a look at the lake which is a very pretty lake with small mountains surrounding the lake. There aren’t a lot of people down at the lake but a few people do seem to be taking advantage of the water trying to catch a fish.

The main thing to see here is a little fortress which is residing above the lake protecting the road next to the fortress – this area around the lake probably was a fairly important crossroad even before the building of the Georgia Military road when the Russians conquered Georgia.

We walk up to the fortress which seems to be guarded by a dog which is standing right next to the entrance gate. Fortunately the dog is friendly and lets us go inside the fortress. The walls of the old fortress are still standing with towers on the wall. The inside of the fortress is dominated by a church which takes up most of the space inside the walls. We can go inside the church and have a look at the – there isn’t many other visitors inside so we can have a look around. There are a bit of old frescoes on the walls but it seems like most of the old frescoes has deteriorated to such a degree they have been painted over so most of the inside of the church is white.

We leave the fortress and continue driving on the Military Road. It doesn’t take long before we arrive in yet another sheep jam – it seems like the sheep go home in the afternoon all over the mountainous part of the country. This time around we are not the only ones stuck behind the sheep’s – a lot of trucks are driving south from the Russian border and they are stuck behind the sheep as well. We manage to pass some of the trucks and the sheep’s and manage to overtake the flock of sheep’s – it was a little small than the huge flock of sheep’s we saw yesterday.

After we passed the sheep it doesn’t take long before we reach the next obstacle. A large herd of cattle is going home as well – the cows are followed by a couple of cowboys on their horses. Fortunately the herd of cattle is smaller than the flock of sheep’s so they don’t slow us down too much and we can continue the drive south.