Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Turkey, Georgia and Armenia – Final Thoughts

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Firstly, this was a quite amazing trip and many thanks to Jonathan for his company and leading me through Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. It was an adventure that I won’t forget and I have very many fond memories of it.

At the base of this page is a list of everything that I’ve posted about this trip, I think I made 89 blog posts about it. And, there are more coming, as I’ve rather rushed through this so that I’ve completed it to at least some degree.

This is my heat map of where I took photos and it also shows quite nicely our journey from Istanbul to Yerevan. There were a lot of trains and buses on this trip.

TURKEY

I’ve wanted to come to Turkey for some time and to be able to see so much of it has been something of a treat. The food here was one of the most notable elements, certainly some of the best kebabs that I’ve had. The lack of Internet was a problem for me, something resolvable by taking an eSim in future, but it tells a wider story. This was a country where access to the Internet was locked in a way that I haven’t experienced in some time, indeed, it was actually Russia that I last recall this happening for me.

Istanbul, as no-one will be surprised by, had a lot of history and I only scratched the surface of it on this trip. Ankara had more life to it in many ways and their railway station is really quite shiny. Erzurum was historic, the pace of life felt slowest here of any city we went to on the trip.

The welcome was always friendly, although the pace often felt slow, and not just when our train pulled into Erzurum 12 hours late. But, a train journey of 32 hours was in very many ways really quite fun, it’s beaten my longest rail journey record from when I travelled from Birmingham (Alabama) to Newark (New Jersey).

This officially secular country was much more religious as we travelled to the east, although it’s politically in an odd place where it has the very European country of Georgia to the east of it and the very European countries of Greece and Bulgaria to the west of it. It, however, is fiercely independent and has a proud history from when it was the Ottoman Empire.

And, let’s not forget the cats. The very many cats.

GEORGIA

Georgia was dynamic, forward-thinking and clearly going places. I hadn’t been prepared for the number of EU flags and the Museum of Soviet Occupation told its own story about the twentieth century. In terms of the food, it had cuisines from all over the world, something that we didn’t experience in the same way in Turkey.

Batumi was the city that surprised me the most, it certainly was the Las Vegas of the wider region as Jonathan had told me about in advance. A city that has undergone a transformation that doesn’t show any signs of stopping. Tbilisi was vibrant, charming, growing and the tourists are likely to keep on coming here.

It’s hard to see the economic resurgence of Georgia coming to an end unless there are wider political issues. With more flights coming in from Europe, this feels like it will attract more tourists, more business and even more growth. And, they felt more open and there was much less regulation of the Internet, something which it shared with Armenia.

Modernity was the element that struck me the most, it might look like it’s living in the past, but this has a future.

ARMENIA

When we were being driven through the Armenian countryside, it did feel like a country that needed a lot of economic growth. But, Yerevan was a modern looking city and it’s clear that’s where the economic drivers are in terms of where the future for Armenia is going to come from.

The Soviet legacy is strong here, it’s a country that finds itself with a smaller amount of territory than it might like and its political future is more uncertain than perhaps somewhere like Georgia. But, it really felt like an independent country with its own destiny, there was a confidence that seemed to be there.

My comments, as ever, are a little random, but they’re the thoughts that come to mind. And, I very much look forward to visiting all three of the countries again. There will now be lots more posts, but below are the ones I’ve posted so far, more than enough to surprise and delight my two loyal blog readers.

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