Georgia on my mind… part 3: Mtskheta & Mt Kazbek

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So, as you have enjoyed the previous two parts, here is the last one… and I am truly sorry for the time it has been sitting in my drafts when I had no time to finish it off.

When we got back from Batumi, we still had quite a few nice one-day trips ahead of us, and the first one was visiting Mtskheta.

Beautiful Mtskheta
… and another one.

The good thing about writing this picture blog is that I can share whatever I still remember but the truth is that our holidays in Georgia were so diverse and interesting that there are parts of it I don’t remember very well, at least my memory fails if it comes to names of places, especially in Georgian. Part of it might be the famous Georgian wine to blame… 🙂

You can view most of our pictures in the gallery below and this is just a small preview.

Moving fast forward, our next very interesting trip was to get as close as possible to Mt Kazbek.

This is our son in front of the Holy Trinity Church

To get there, you can either walk or take one of the 4×4 cabs that are suitably equipped to get you almost anywhere. Walking might have been also more dangerous because of heavy 4×4 traffic so the wisest option was to use the cab… which took us to the Holy Trinity Church, as pictured above.

So, I guess that was quite another great week or so… Unfortunately, the last one! Have a look at the galleries below as they definitely show the real Georgia!

If you would rather prefer to see the gallery in a in an un-embedded new tab or window, please click HERE for Mtskheta and HERE for Mt Kazbek. This displays the gallery in a much nicer and easier to view way 🙂

If you like the lovely pictures, share freely with others on Facebook or other social media, and hopefully you also like the following parts of our Georgia adventure… Watch this space!


Georgia on my mind… part 2: Kutaisi and Batumi

[Wszystkie poniższe wpisy zostały opublikowane oryginalnie na www.aristos.org.uk, czyli naszej macierzystej stronie. Tutaj zostały przeniesione w formie oryginalnej i na razie nie przetłumaczone. Przepraszamy!]

So this is the second leg of our holiday journey and I will spare you a lot of details as pictures certainly appeal better to most of people.

We borrowed a car, very good for Georgian roads but apparently a bit too small for us four with the luggage, etc. Hence our hold luggage is not quite in the hold but on the roof, still holding quite well 🙂

Our aim was to get to Batumi by car as we had our place to stay booked there. Yet, Kutaisi (the old capital of Georgia) was on our way so it was a good idea to stop there to see things around… Totally worth it!

In the main square at Kutaisi, just in the centre of a big roundabout!

From Kutaisi, the wise choice was to explore the Prometheus Cave

Just one of the lovely pictures… You can see much more in the section below.

And, another short trips of ours was to see the Shaori Reservoir… and to have a swim there!

Swimming in the Shaori Reservoir with children…

Having spent in Kutaisi and its neighbourhood just a few days, we moved on to the Black Sea, to Batumi, where we were supposed to spend about a week.

Sunset in Batumi…

We did not quite like the buzzing atmosphere of Batumi, possibly after Tbilisi we were looking for some quiet space… So we decided to move on to Sarpi 🙂 at the Black Sea and on the border with Turkey.

On a beautiful beach of Sarpi… great for freedivers!

We went to Batumi on a few occasions, mostly in the evening, but also went to other beautiful places like this famous waterfall.

Makhuntseti Waterwall

So, I guess that was quite another great week or so… Have a look at the galleries below as they really show the real Georgia!

If you would rather prefer to see the gallery in a in an un-embedded new tab or window, please click HERE for Kutaisi and HERE for Batumi. This displays the gallery in a much nicer and easier to view way 🙂

If you like the lovely pictures, share freely with others on Facebook or other social media, and hopefully you also like the following parts of our Georgia adventure… Watch this space!


Georgia on my mind… part 1: Tbilisi and Kakheti

[Wszystkie poniższe wpisy zostały opublikowane oryginalnie na www.aristos.org.uk, czyli naszej macierzystej stronie. Tutaj zostały przeniesione w formie oryginalnej i na razie nie przetłumaczone. Przepraszamy!]

As many of you have known for some time, we have spent this years’ holidays in beautiful Georgia. For those not quite aware of where Georgia is and how long and rich history it has, here is a link to Wikipedia.

From our way to see Mount Kazbek from as close as possible, without alpine equipment.

This is one of a few posts I have decided to share with you, mainly because Georgia is a country of such a beautiful and interesting nature and historic sights… and with its society and common life–full of contrasts. So, these writings are supposed to help you decide whether it is worth exploring more… In our opinion, it definitely is!

Cows, and pigs, and other domestic animals are very common in the middle of the road, even on pretty busy roads. This is not very far from the capital, Tbilisi.

So, let us start from the beginning. We began our journey on 26th July 2018, driving from Sherborne (SW of England) to our friends’ house, not far from London Gatwick. Having spent about an hour there, we took a taxi to get to the airport to fly off to Riga (Latvia). The flight was pretty much uneventful so the next leg was to fly from Riga to Tbilisi (Georgia). This time the plane was smaller and I really appreciated the information being displayed on a tiny overhead monitors, showing our exact GPS location, temperature outside and some other details. I could read from there that the lowest temperature we had outside was -52C and the highest… well, read on!

It was about 3:30am Georgian local time, when the plane started to approach the airport and I was meticulously observing how the temperature was beginning to rise. At the altitude of about 800m the air temperature was already +33C and when we landed a few minutes later the temperature was +37C and it was early in the morning… As a side note, the first stationary aeroplane I spotted was from MyWay Airlines, and I found it as a rather funny name! No offence but it seemed like someone really was looking for a good name but definitely lacked in invention.

We managed to find our hold luggage pretty quickly and were lucky to have our kind uncle who greeted us there and took all of us to an apartment in Tbilisi where we were supposed to stay for about a week, until our next planned trip to Kutaisi and Batumi was about to take place.

Another picture from our road to get closer to Mount Kazbek.

Yes, living in the capital of Georgia is interesting. If you are keen on cold showers, the temperature of cold water is way above 20C, probably close to 23C and often more… Also the water pressure is very very low as the water is transported through very old underground pipes, so only low pressure can keep water delivery at bay. We have experienced two water cuts during our stay at Tbilisi, one lasted nearly 24 hours and the other about 12 hours.

Effectively, if you would like to use a Cold Shower Enhancer, especially in some older places of Tbilisi, just forget about it… The water pressure is barely enough to take a normal shower, not to mention coping with additional constraints like the CSE. And, as you can see in the following picture, I have managed to squeeze my CSE into the hold luggage but… I have not been able to use it.

Here it is, my Cold Shower Enhancer, ready for Georgian adventure… sadly, not in the position to be utilised at all.

Anyway, here are quite a few photos from our stay at Tbilisi and the next parts of this blog will cover Kutaisi, Batumi and Mount Kazbek, respectively. They have been put into a photo gallery so, if you want to, you can click on each of them to see the picture in closer detail.

And, although the photo gallery below also includes pictures from the time when we got back from Batumi to Tbilisi, for the sake of keeping the pictures from one place in one part of the blog, here is Tbilisi (as I see it) in photographs.

If you would rather prefer to see the gallery in a in an un-embedded new tab or window, please click HERE for Tbilisi or HERE for Kakheti. These display the gallery in a much nicer and easier to view way 🙂

If you like the lovely pictures, share freely with others on Facebook or other social media, and hopefully you also like the following parts of our Georgia adventure… Watch this space!


Welcome to Aristos Tropos

Welcome to Aristos Tropos, the optimum Way of Wellness!

As this is the first post, it serves as a means of an introduction…

[Wszystkie poniższe wpisy zostały opublikowane oryginalnie na www.aristos.org.uk, czyli naszej macierzystej stronie. Tutaj zostały przeniesione w formie oryginalnej i na razie nie przetłumaczone. Przepraszamy!]

In a nutshell and to say it simply, we have combined Kriya Yoga, Tai Chi, HIIT and Wim Hof Method into one, and that 'one’ we call Aristos Tropos which means 'optimum way’ in Greek. The first one who has notably used that expression in his dialogues was a Greek philosopher, Plato.

Aristos Tropos training, conditioning and therapy is a process and definitely requires commitment but, like with Wim Hof Method, you can see and feel the changes from day one! If you follow the path of Aristos Tropos closely and be attentive to yourself, it would lead you to deep relaxation, meditative mood and incredible focus… not to mention other benefits, usually associated with practising Wim Hof Method, as well.

Is there a one-for-all method possible? Definitely yes, and definitely no! Aristos Tropos is a way of wellness and as such it recognises each person as an individual, with all the associated complexities. Therefore, like Kriya Yoga, Aristos Tropos is a way of adjusting the available tools and techniques to suit an individual… any individual. And we know what we are talking about as we have already trained quite a number of people, ranging from athletes to people with health conditions, including individuals suffering from severe depression and long-term insomnia.

Very much similar to Wim Hof Method (which keeps being developed and changed), Aristos Tropos is the solution that is being stirred and mixed every day… to test, to proofread, to adjust and fine-tune. This is the 'svadhyaya’ aspect of self-observance, self-learning and self-development. While 'tapas’, i.e. asanas and pranayama, serve as more physical means of cleansing and purification, they also provide a recurring basis for self-examination, from where–with focus and commitment–you can start the self-learning process…

Aristos Tropos is not only concentrated on physical and mental exercises as it is a comprehensive, 'holistic’ way to improve your wellness (and wellness around you). It includes intermittent fasting as means of advice, similarly to other dietary recommendations, as well as supplements and hygiene advice.

We organise 1-day workshops, weekend workshops and we will also offer retreats pretty soon… but on a weekday basis we also provide regular Aristos Tropos classes in Sherborne (Dorset). The details of the latter ones will soon be announced as they are either generic Aristos Tropos based or specifically targeted at specific conditions, being either weight-loss, flexibility, meditation, mindfulness… All of the classes have their more in-depth description in our events page.

We have invented and introduced the Cold Shower Enhancer which is introduced on a separate page. This little, very efficient and very environmentally friendly device, aids in taking an ice-cold shower of 2-4C for the duration of about 10 minutes, using only one bucket (10kg) of ice! It now uses a new Gas Diffuser Module which help in stabilising the cold temperature for a longer periods of time. The Cold Shower Enhancer can be purchased online via our shop.

Anyway, keep in touch and read other posts when they appear here as and when time allows…