Tbilisi, Georgia, June 8, 2014

The day opened sunny and warm but in bright sunlight our rooms looked even more questionable. In particular there was lots of noise from a nearby construction site (on a Sunday) and the workmen had a pretty good view into my little bathroom which somehow I didn't like. Thus we moved to a different hotel: same prize but the rooms are lots better.

The rest of the day we spent with sightseeing, mostly of Tbilisi old town which is rather interesting and fascinating. Entering from Freedom Square if one goes straight or turns left one comes to a part of the old town which has largely been renovated and modernized. Here the old town features lots of stylish and very modern restaurants and bars and some very nice and cosy pedestrianized areas. When one turns right from Freedom Square one travels into the genuinely old part of the old town: houses which were built 200 years ago and have hardly been touched during the last 100 years. They certainly have remained fairly untouched by any paintbrushes or repair tools. But this is a most fascinating part of town, exactly because of this.

One feels set back at least a hundred years although many of the buildings look precarious and close to collapse though most are inhabited. There are many narrow pathways and roads although this did not prevent any of Tbilisi's wild drivers to noisily try to ram their cars through the narrow streets. We found a Bar Shalom and a new Jewish Museum to be opened soon as well as a derelict synagogue and of course many orthodox churches. A large part of the old town was inhabited by Jews through the centuries and this is still the case, at least to some extent, though this part of town has become more mixed now. It can only be hoped that no modern day reformer wishes to do away with this part of the old town to replace it with a modernized and sanitized version of what an old town is supposed to look like for the international tourist trade. A most fascinating visit - we have to come back.

Tomorrow very busy: two lectures on US foreign policy, one to a university, one to the Foreign Ministry, and a number of meetings with think tank people and some ambassadors and ministers.