It turns out I had found the Tbilisi Botanical Gardens. I walked along the walls looking for a way down. I came upon a turnstile but was given the international symbol for "NO! Don't go there!" (which, in case you're curious, looks like 2 forearms crossing in front of your chest) by a man sitting in a little guard house. So I left. Defeated.
The following weekend our friend Brad took us, along with his 2 children, down a bumpy back street to the lower entrance of the gardens. It was worth the wait. Tucked away behind a looming fortress and hidden among a snake-like network of streets is a gem among the crumbling foundations of this city.
A 1 Lari entrance fee ($0.70) gets you access to a beautifully manicured network of paths, flower beds and streams. Gurgling irrigation pools trickle past you along the paths as you climb past collections of trees and flowers (virtually garbage free, except for this one cave which has a pile of trash in it...alas, the rule of 80%)
The kids were told that they could not pick any flowers except dandelions. As a result, we all carried fist fulls of yellow weeds by the end of the hike. We did our part to clean up the landscape.
We even spotted a couple of people practicing Tae Chi among the trees. As we wrapped around the stream to head back toward the cars one of the kids pulled up short and said, "LOOK!" I looked down to see 3 pink sequins on the ground. Leave it to a 4 year old girl to find the smallest, shiniest pink object in this huge garden.
As we neared the parking lot a noise, which I had mistakenly took for some very large and aggressive birds, became louder. We crossed a foot bridge over the stream and came upon a frog pond (ahhh...so NOT huge killer birds then.) These frogs were having a heated debate over who could boast the biggest "lily pad." Can you spot them?
The Botanical Gardens has made our list of "Places to take people who visit us in Tbilisi."
