We arrived in Tbilisi late on Sunday evening and just barely had time to drop our luggage at the apartment and go to the nearest cafe to get some kinkhali (soup dumplings) for dinner before bedtime.

Monday morning we poked around the neighborhood a bit – we were staying just off a touristy stretch of Kote Afkhazi in the old city. It’s a bumpy, narrow cobblestone street that’s pretty constantly jammed with taxis, cars, city buses, feral cats and dogs, and pedestrians dashing in every direction. The street is lined with big old trees and ancient buildings housing souvenir shops, fruit vendors, wine stores, little groceries and sweet shops. Everyone is chatting in the street, smoking cigarettes, feeding and adoring the street dogs.

We’d hired a tour guide to show us around the city in the afternoon. I thought that might be more fun for the kids, and it gave us a chance to chat with someone local and ask lots of questions about the city and learn a little bit about local culture. We got a very nice young guide named Mia who started out by bringing us up to the top of Sololaki ridge to see the great big Mother of Georgia statue.

She’s called “Kartlis Deda” (or “ქართვლის დედა”) in Georgian and she’s 50’ tall and covered in gleaming metal, looking out across the city. In one hand she holds a bowl of wine, for welcoming her friends; in the other hand she holds a sword, for her enemies. The view from the ridge is expansive, and the city looks huuuge, stretching off in every direction into the hazy distant hills.

Mia brought us on our first cable-car ride, from the top of Sololaki ridge down to the middle of the old city. I was worried that the kids would be afraid of riding in the cable-cars, but with Mia’s cheerful company, they loved the ride and the views.

When we landed on solid ground, we were in Vake park, close to the shiny modern pedestrian Bridge of Peace across the river. Mia told us that Georgia built this bridge as an expression of the country’s desire for peace, after the 1991-93 and brief 2008 wars of Russian aggression, in which Georgia lost several of its provinces. It’s a lovely bridge to walk across, and it brought us back to our side of the river, close to our apartment.

On Tuesday, Mike and the kids had planned a horseback outing. They got picked up for an hour’s drive to a horse ranch outside the city. Mike said the driver talked non-stop about a largely incomprehensible jumble of history and politics. Harriet’s horse was a little unruly and scared her, but Sadie and Mike enjoyed their ride through the countryside.

I took the opportunity to walk around the city for half a day in the warm sun, a meandering route that included a stop at the good art supply shop downtown, and a brief visit to the Dry Bridge flea market, but also included lots of poking into shady alleys, taking pictures, and meeting cats.

Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day, we all headed out for a walk together. Tried to visit the textile museum at the art school but they were inexplicably closed (the sign on the door said they should be open!) so we ended up going to the amusement park instead! You have to ride a (different) cable car up to the Mtatsminda amusement park on top of Mount Mtatsminda, overlooking the city. The cable car station is a pretty amazing place itself. After buying our tickets and scampering up the winding ramps, we rode up above the rooftops of the old city, above the tree-covered mountainside, and disembarked at the park entrance, stopping to admire the view on our way in.

There’s a big Soviet-era amusement park on top of a mountain that’s right next to the old city. It’s really lovely up there, breezy and cool with lots of pine trees. There are new rides and very nice concessions but also some pretty dated vintage rides and some boarded-up overgrown rides too, it’s quite a jumble.