Chiatura: 1-Day Tour from Tbilisi
At 8:00 AM, your driver and I will meet you at your hotel/place of residence in Tbilisi. From here you will drive to the Katskhi pillar. Stunning and mysterious, this 40-meter high natural limestone monolith towers over the gorge of the Karshuna River. On top of the pillar, there is a monastery and reconstructed 8th-century church most likely built by the Stylite. There is only one inhabitant, monk Maxime who has been living in the monastery for over 25 years in solitude and silence.
You will then continue onward to Chiatura, an industrial town founded in the late 1800s. In Soviet Georgia, the town was a center of manganese mining. Present Chiatura attracts visitors who are interested in Soviet time left-overs and remnants. To grasp a true feeling of the past, you can ride a communism-era cable car still used by the locals as a means of transport. This transport system has a dozen operating ropeway lines for passengers and two cargo lines for transporting manganese. The total length of the cableway exceeds 6,000 meters.
Located between steep valleys and deep gorges Chiatura will leave an unforgettable impression on anyone visiting this off-the-beaten-track Georgian destination. At the conclusion of your day, you will be driven back to Tbilisi before being dropped off at your hotel/place of residence.
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