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Incredible Landscapes on the Poland-Slovakia Border: Peter Discovers the Tatra Mountains

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Incredible Landscapes on the Poland-Slovakia Border: Peter Discovers the Tatra Mountains

Poland’s reputation is for being an overwhelmingly flat country, and that is mostly true, but its far southern border, which it shares with Slovakia, is marked by a particularly jagged section of the Carpathians known as the Tatra Mountains. Although they are much smaller than other European mountain ranges—such as the Alps, Pyrenees, and Caucasus—they are extremely dense, rugged, and beautiful. In fact, they are SO beautiful that—although they only stretch about 57 km (35 miles)—the Polish and Slovakian sides receive a combined ~8.5 million visitors per year, skewed toward the Polish side. That makes them the most intensely visited mountain landscape per square kilometer in Europe. And yet, I’d never even heard of them before this trip!

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Peter's First Time in Poland: Exploring Historic Kraków

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Peter's First Time in Poland: Exploring Historic Kraków

It’s a new country for Peter’s Big Adventure! Welcome to Poland 🇵🇱

Our journey in Poland starts in Krakow. This is a city that I knew first from the WWII history books, and later as a desirable and beautiful European destination that I’d be well-advised to bump up to the top of my priority list of future trips. Indeed, Krakow is many different things to many different groups of people, and today we’re going to do our best to understand as many of these layers as we can. So let’s get started, eh?

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Peter Finds Literal Paradise On The Georgia-Russia Border: Ushguli

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Peter Finds Literal Paradise On The Georgia-Russia Border: Ushguli

Literal paradise.

Ushguli is a small cluster of towns that sits right on the Georgia-Russia border in the mountainous northerly region of Svaneti. It’s remote, difficult to access, and it’s got a population of less than 250 people. And yet, a quick Google image search for Georgia (the country of Georgia) will often return images of Ushguli even above images of the capital city. Clearly there is something special about this place.

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Peter Hikes To Chalaadi Glacier (Northern Georgia)

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Peter Hikes To Chalaadi Glacier (Northern Georgia)

The Caucasus Mountains don’t hold many superlatives or titles because, compared with other major mountain chains like the Andes or the Himalayas, they’re boxed into a pretty small area. They also rise up basically straight from sea level (they border the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian to the east), so there was virtually no chance of them having the highest anything. Compare that with the Rockies—driving west across the U.S., by the time you get to Denver, which is still in the Great Plains, you’re already more than a mile above sea level! So the Caucasus range flies below the radar, but once you get yourself into the middle of it, it’s pretty overwhelming. It is a world unto itself, with all sorts of interesting secrets and idiosyncrasies. Today we’re going to focus on glaciers.

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Street Art with Peter: Tbilisi, Georgia

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Street Art with Peter: Tbilisi, Georgia

Georgia’s cultural resurgence comes in many forms, but today we’re going to focus specifically on street art. Tbilisi is a treasure trove of interesting little alleyways, tastefully decrepit old buildings, and a unique form of urban decay that makes the whole city feel like some sort of massive antique shop. And in the spaces in between the city’s main cobblestone causeways and its many new restaurants and coffeeshops, there is quite a robust collection of murals that… well, I should probably just shut up and show you.

FEAST YOUR EYES!

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Peter's Favorite Things To Do & See In Tbilisi, Georgia

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Peter's Favorite Things To Do & See In Tbilisi, Georgia

Now it’s time to dive a bit deeper and check out some of the sights that make Tbilisi, Georgia what it is on an individual level. I went to a hell of a lot of places within this city, but I’m only going to cover the ones that really stick out in my mind as being special. There’s a lot of ground to cover and no time to waste, so let’s jump in!

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Peter In Tbilisi (Georgia): An Introduction

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Peter In Tbilisi (Georgia): An Introduction

Some cities hit you with strong vibes the minute you step out of the airport, and those vibes set the tone of your entire stay. But Tbilisi was an interesting one, because I really didn’t feel anything when I arrived here. Or ever, in the 7 nights I spent in this city. I was expecting some sort of strong, emotive, post-Soviet energy of a fledgling nation determined to get on its feet regardless of Russia’s endless attempts to undermine its sovereignty (or, you know, something like that) … but I felt nothing. Because, as it turns out, Tbilisi is a city with absolutely ZERO pretense.

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Peter's First Active War Zone (Sort Of) + Noravank (Armenia)

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Peter's First Active War Zone (Sort Of) + Noravank (Armenia)

This started as a trip to a church in the southern part of Armenia called Noravank. Not a big deal.

We’re going to get there by the end of this article, but we’re going to take a detour to explain something interesting along the way first. So I’ll drop us into the story right around noon, when I was riding shotgun in a large van, speeding southward along the Armenian-Turkish border.

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Peter Explores Armenia's Lake Sevan

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Peter Explores Armenia's Lake Sevan

Lake Sevan is the life blood of Armenia. This is the biggest water source in a small landlocked country, so its value as a natural resource cannot be overstated. It provides 90% of the fish consumed by Armenia, as well as a huge portion of the water used for agricultural irrigation and generation of electricity. And if you look at a map of Armenia, it’s probably the first geographic feature that you will notice. Armenia is not a big country—for my American readers, it’s about the size of Maryland—so a lake this big is hard to miss. Exactly how big is it? It’s about 1,900 squares miles, or about 1/6 of Armenia’s total surface area. That makes it a little more than half the size of Lake Erie. And at 312 ft deep, Lake Sevan is actually quite a bit deeper than Lake Erie. Although, it’s a bit less deep these days than it used to be.

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Peter In Yerevan: An Introduction (Armenia)

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Peter In Yerevan: An Introduction (Armenia)

Once we got a bit closer to the city center, the vibes quickly became more difficult to categorize. Fast forward a few hours and I was in my happy place: out on the streets with my camera. I was eager to jump to conclusions, but the further I walked the less I sure I became of what I thought I knew. Some times I would pick up Middle-Eastern vibes from open-air restaurants in city squares, other times I would get European vibes from the little Armenian bakeries tucked away somewhere on every block. And the architecture on those blocks sometimes seemed to be European-adjacent… but then on the next block the buildings were giant, brutalist concrete blocks, serving as a striking reminder of Armenia’s Soviet past.

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