Today was the longer trips out of town day. Ours was the closest, just an hour and a half away at Uplistsikhe, the Lord’s Fortress, a cave city dating back to the 4th century BC. From our point of view, we thought it seemed quite isolated but that’s because we know there’s a main road just a couple of kilometers away and a capital city of 1.3m people an hour and a half away but 2400 years ago, this would have been the big city.

Begin at the beginning. The other tours left at 9am and ours went at 10am. We had the tour guide Lela from Tuesday and there were two other people from the enamel tour yesterday plus a good handful of people I’ve either seen around or have been on other trips. We were in the small coach. When I arrived, there was a minibus and that seemed far too small to transport 25 people an hour and a half and back but luckily, that was unrelated and our coach turned up. We went up the main road, past Tserovani (and the big Carrefour and the Coca-Cola Georgia bottling factory) and then out to Gori, birthplace of Stalin. Should there be a museum about him? We discussed it, our guide discussed it and apparently the people of Gori in particular discuss it. I’ve been told “Did you know Stalin was born in Georgia? We are not proud” but the people of Gori have a slightly more complex relationship, given that he’s – in the words of my guidebook – “simply the only important thing to ever come out of Gori”.

Across the river, past the cows being watered in the shallows, round the bend and there we were at Uplistsikhe where Lela herded us and local guide Tamar explained what we were actually seeing. Uplistsikhe is long abandoned but it’s had two major periods. The first was in the few centuries BC. The guidebook says it was a religious centre by 1000BC but that seems a very long time ago. Second was in the medieval period before being largely destroyed in the 13th century. It’s carved out of sandstone and there are rooms and “hooks” and shelves and jails and wine cellars and drainage channels and fireplaces and all sorts still visible. Many of them have lost their roofs, either through age or through earthquakes or through using wooden beams to hold up stone second-storeys. Entrance is via far too many steps and then there’s plenty to scramble on, views across mountains and plains and rivers. Some of it was patched up by the Soviets, so there’s the occasional incongruent concrete pillar holding up the mouth of a stone cave and perched on the top is an ordinary brick-and-stone from somewhere around the 9th or 10th century. I’m astonished at places like Winchester Cathedral, built in the 1070s and even more when I find an actual Saxon church but here it’s quite normal to see a church built in the 4th or 6th century. Some of them have had a certain amount of renovation over the last 1500 years, new belfries or frescos or whatever but it’s kind of unimaginable that somethng that old is just part of normal life here.

We exited via a secret tunnel – higher but also shorter than we expected and with stairs running through it. I daresay it was carved by hand just like everything else but it really looks like it it was formed by swirling floodwaters. Very exciting finish!

Now, we knew a lunch was coming. Lela had mentioned the lunch and besides, by this point, we’d learned to pretty much expect it. I’d looked at the map and decided it would either be in Gori – that would make a certain amount of sense – or back in the same restaurant in Mtskheta as yesterday. I watched the blue dot as the bus left Uplistsikhe. I watched it take the road south of the river. I watched it bypass Gori. I watched Mstkheta get closer. I watched us leave the road and cross the river towards Mtskheta. We were dropped off in the same place. We walked down the same road, took the same turning. Yep, same restaurant. This time, because we were 25 instead of 10, we were seated at three or four smaller tables and instead of having two of every dish, each table only had one. It was still too much to finish but it was less overwhelming somehow, half the food split between six instead of double the food split between 11, even though that’s pretty much the same amount of food. I was quite pleased – the bread came out first and although it took a moment, the cheese-stuffed khachapuri appeared fairly quickly and with no toasting or explanations or everyone diving in to take photos and videos first, it was still hot and melty when it reached my plate.

It was much more efficient than yesterday. Some people ran out to see the cathedral, a few of us went down to the river (and then panicked when we realised the restaurant was empty – back up on the main street, we discovered the rest were only a couple of hundred yards ahead) and then it was straight back to Tbilisi. I’d checked the itinerary before we set out. 10-3 yesterday had become 10-4 by this morning and we actually got back at 5:45, which by the standards of the week was practically bang on time.

There were Friday night drinks across the river from Rose Revolution Square but I decided I’d rather come home, drink some pineapple juice, have a couple of squares of chocolate and go and have another sulphur bath. I wanted to try No 5 Bathhouse but they didn’t have a room until 11pm, which is a bit too late. Gulo’s had a room but it was 180 GEL (~£54) which was a bit too much. Chreli Abano is nice and is the popular one but I think the Royal Bathhouse was better value so that was my first stop after that. Yes, they had a room! It would be an hour. Actually, it would be 50 minutes. It was ten past eight and I was given a receipt for my 50 GEL deposit saying 9pm. What to do for 50 minutes in the Old Town? I know for many people the obvious answer would be a bar or cafe. Not me. Was it worth going home? No. Not walking up that hill twice in one evening. Sit in the waiting room? Ah ha! Go up the cable car! I still had my Metro Money card in my pocket so I paid the princely sum of 5 GEL (£1.49) for a return ticket. I’d already been up once in daylight but it’s definitely worth going up in the dark. I stayed long enough to see the Mother of Georgia statue (to be honest, best not viewed from directly underneath) and to take some selfies with the view. There are lots of little market and souvenir stalls along the path and they have some incredible lighting. You can take a selfie with proper good lighting and also the lit-up city behind and… actually, the effect is that you’ve photoshopped yourself in. I had to take some more further down where I was more silhouetted just because they looked more real. Then back down the cable car where I discovered it was 8:43. I’ve still not really got the hang of Georgian Maybe Time. They absolutely won’t be expecting me at 9 on the dot (they weren’t) but if I get there late, they might decide I’m not coming and give my room to someone else! And there are two major road crossings between the cable car and the bathhouse door. I had to get across Europe Square, which is actually a roundabout, and then across Vakhtang Gorgasili Square, which is actually four lanes of traffic with no lanes drawn on the cobbles. I got there in plenty of time. Even with the roads, it’s only 530 metres and I managed it in seven minutes.

It was the same room as yesterday and the same… I don’t know what the word is for the lady who’s on reception and shows you to your room and hammers on the door if you stay too long and shouts “Lady! Please!” when she wants you to follow her but I think of provodnitsa which is the lady on the Trans-Siberian who does much the same job. I thought I was wearing quite a distinctive hat but she clearly gets through a lot of people in 24 hours because once she’d showed me to the same room, she asked if I’d been before. Yes, this time yesterday. Dial 0 if there’s a problem. Lock the door. Check your watch. Jump in the hot water.

I want one of these in my house. This particular pool is about the size of a double bed and deep enough to stand up in and a really pleasant warmth. Yesterday I spent a lot of time gazing at the tiles on the floor and the side of the massage slab and took photos before I left. I know mosaic tiles are expensive but I could buy plain white ones and paint these patterns on them, couldn’t I?

It was 10pm by the time I was finished, the latest I’ve been out all week. It’s 11 minutes and a 27m climb back up the hotel, where I washed the sulphur out of my hair (there’s a shower in the sulphur room but you don’t want to waste your precious hour) and now I’ve written this, it’s bedtime.