Sarah Anderson Leave Tbilisi and visit Mtskheta  – the ancient capital of Georgia. I quickly sketch Dzhvari Church, visited by Lermontov, before we go on to the cathedral of Sveti-Tskhoveli – a particularly sacred site as legend has it that Christ’s robe is buried there. In a very different spirit we drive to Gori, Stalin’s birthplace, where … Read more
Visit museum to see various famous 19th century Georgian painters – Pirosmanashvili, Gudiashvili and Kakavadze. While we are in the museum it rains for the only time that we are in Georgia. Wander round the flea market and go to the open air museum of ethnography where we are shown round by a guide who … Read more
Walk round old Tbilisi with a very academic guide. Much is being restored – but there is an enormous amount of work to still be done. Balconies and courtyards abound. Fantastic gold treasure from Vani in the Georgian National Museum. A golden goblet from Trialeti with lapis, cornelian, jet and amber dates from the first … Read more
Fly to Tbilisi on BMI – we have to go via Baku – and as Baku is in Azerbaijan and is much further away – we have a much longer journey than necessary. Arrive late at night and the hotel doesn’t have enough rooms for us all, but everyone was given a bottle of red … Read more
Georgia: Visit a woman who has various businesses – which include knitting socks which she dyes using vegetable dyes she has brewed and making lethal alcohol flavoured with honey. Her cellar is a wonderful shrine to fruit and vegetables and alcohol. The Babaneuri Strict Nature Reserve has many zelkova trees.
I spent last week at Lumb Bank near Hebden Bridge –Â the Arvon Foundation’s Yorkshire outpost. It was the house that belonged to Ted Hughes. I went there determined to try and get back into writing my thriller. And succeeded – the next hurdle is to continue now that I’m back home. Before I left I … Read more
This article was first published in the Times Online, on May 7, 2007 Our literary traveller, Sarah Anderson, packed her books again and travels to Tibet Does Shangri-la really exist? Certainly there has long been the appeal of a mythical land where no one ever got old, but it was only in the 1990s when … Read more
This article was first published in the Times Online, on April 11, 2007 Our globe-trotting literary traveller Sarah Anderson hits the road again with her books, this time to Cuba It was my 22-year old niece’s idea to go to Cuba, she only had to twist my arm vaguely, since I’m always keen to go … Read more
September – always a positive if somewhat melancholy month for me – new beginnings and in my case this year a new website. With the old one I felt that the paintings were just an add on – with the new one I feel that they are integral to the site. Indeed the home page … Read more
Having found out where the hermit nun lives, I get up very early and walk to her chapel in the woods. I rather assumed she’d be an early riser but I think I arrive too early as the chapel is still locked. I ring a bell and she comes out and lets me in. A … Read more