Public Service Hall in Tianeti

16 November, 2016 | Tourism objects | 27 seen

Georgia is well know of its unique style and design for Public service halls across the country.

The most famous probably is the Tbilisi Public service hall (Ups, I don't have a separate article about it yet, but yes, there is a good reason to make one soon). I was surprised when noticed a futuristic public service hall in Tianeti (small rural town located some 75km from nations capital Tbilisi), as the only cool sites I have found so far in Tianeti were Kuzh Park and a lovely roadside cafeteria Vanessa. 

Tianeti Public Service Hall

Tianeti public service hall have been built and opened for public just recently (in 2015) the cost for the State budget was GEL 2,735,114 (About USD 1,098,000). 

All sides of facade of new Public Service Hall building in Tianeti are rich with architectural and civil engineering solutions. The main panel is located on the south-west side of the complex. According to the project, the main hall is accommodated in the same part too. The central building is most different from the other parts and facades and is implemented…

Lord Restaurant Review in Tbilisi

15 November, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 28 seen

The Lord restaurant comes as the biggest discovery in my Tbilisi restaurant review series this year, located on the Left embankment of Mtkvari, this place is actually pretty close to our apartment, although after living in this neighborhood for more than three years, we never tried those restaurants located on neither sides of Embankment (with an exception being Zakhar Zakharich restaurant).

It was an evening, and we decided to try our luck at one of the Left embankment places - Restaurant Lord was first in our route. The lovely Russian speaking restaurant manager allocated us a separate cabin house, which actually seemed the same size as our country house. A spacious room with a huge and served table.

At restaurant Lord

This place looked kind of for VIP, and I insecurely asked, could I see a menu, before ordering (as I was afraid of possible price attached). The lady replied - I'm your menu for this evening. This might sound strange, yes. But she continued to call each menu items with price attached. Prices seemed OK, and I said OK, stop counting... I already know what to order. Let me explain - I really…

Country House 'Guronys' Near Pasuliai in Lithuania

13 November, 2016 | Hotel reviews | 9 seen

Guronys is located on a 7 hectare area and offers rooms and historic, wooden cottages with authentic décor of a Lithuanian village house. It is located on the bank of the lake, 8 km from Vilnius - Kaunas motorway and booking.com says it offers boat and waterbike rental, as well as a waterslide.

It was on our second day trip around Lithuania, when we booked this guesthouse, while eating Some Chinese food in Kaunas. It was a day before my birthday and we wanted o have some romantic and probably  even a remote place. The price seemed a bit too low for a good country house (we paid just EUR 27), I felt a bit antirust at start - what can you get for 27 EUR - I guess pretty much nothing (The other night we spent at hotel in Telsiai and spent about 50 EUR there, and didn't get much comfort). But we were on our way to Guronys. We stopped at some local shop, bought few kilos of meat, as we prepared to grill a bit this night.

No GPS, TomTom's or what-so- ever - just a true travel spirit and our reliable Honda CRV. We got lost, yes, we got lost in deep forests of Lithuania, but somehow (and I still don't now how)- we after all find this…

Kuzh Park in Tianeti

12 November, 2016 | Tourism objects | 17 seen

Kuzh park is located in the town of Tianeti, Georgia.

We first discovered it at the end of October 2016, and ever since we have been returning here once in a while, especially now with our baby girl. 

I didn't find much info about this park on the internet, thus at the end of October I visited it, made some photographs, and decided to extend my Georgia travel app, by adding this place on map.

There is a lovely cafeteria - Vanessa located just before the entrance to this park.

Children's playground and wind brooms

This place is spectacular in every season. But best visited in Spring / Summer

Carvings

Park is well maintained, there are interesting carved objects, children attractions, stadium and even a small scene. 

Open air stage

Monument to Vazha Pshavela

We have been heading to Kuzh Park for years already. Really nice and tranquil place to spend a day.

Gas Burger Tbilisi Review

11 November, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 29 seen

Gas Burger on Marjanishvili street Tbilisi is among my latest discoveries from Tbilisi eatery's. In short  - a very good place, where rich burgers and milk shakes are served. A little but ecletic - I would call this a Turkish interpretation of American burger house - huge posters from 50-ties, juke box and combos.

Oh, I get what this place reminds me - another Elvis restaurant. Huh, seems I don't have review about Elvis bistro on my blog. Anyhow, the story is about Gas Burger.

Gas Burger in Tbilisi

It was a Fridays night and we decided to take a walk on David Agmanashebeli avenue, and ended up near Marjanishvili metro square - and here it was - Burger House Gas.

We dived in - get a table and very large menus with a lot of food items.

The menu at Burger Gas

You might wonder, why at the start of this article I named this a Turkish place - simple, the menu is written in Georgian, English and you name it - Turkish.

While we browsed the menu to decide what to order an Azeri guy entered this place with bunch of roses and offered to people sitting next to the tables…

Lithuanian Wedding

10 November, 2016 | | 12 seen

I originally wanted to create a post - Postcards from Kaunas, for Postcards from series, but when browsed through the images I captured back in Kaunas, Lithuania this Summer I found that this time my architecture photography failed, instead I have captured lovely scenes from a typical Lithuanian wedding.

This is not the first time "Put a nationality here" Wedding is appearing on Piece of Life wall, see Armenian Wedding.

Rose leaves in the streets of Kaunas

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Castle of Kaunas

To frame above picture I had to use a tripod and panoramic photography technique - in the background groom's friends. 

Newlyweds

Lock of love

Maybe its time for me to excel as a wedding photographer? :) Leave me your quotes and let's arrange a session for wedding photography.

OwnCloud - Increase Max File Upload Size

9 November, 2016 | Servers | 40 seen

It has been more than 2 years, since I installed (set and forgot) OwnCloud for internal file sharing. 

For the past two years OwnCloud have worked like a charm (and still does). Just today I faced a problem - I tried to upload file larger than 513 MB (default max file for OwnCloud), but struck because of exceeding max file upload size. I really needed to deliver this file across few continents as quick as possible. Well I could probably use direct file upload on bare ftp, but this is not the case. I went hunting for a quick solution to increase max upload file size on OwnCloud.

Luckily I found this tutorial, explaining how things are handled in OwnCloud and how to upload files bigger than 512 MB.

The fun part follows now - As I did set Owncloud more than two years ago, I had forgotten all server login details, and ended using Linode Lish access to gain back control of this server. I keep notes after each setup, so after a brief mail search I did found missing login details anc could proceed.

Our OwnCloud file sharing setup had been running on a separate Linode VPS with Ubuntu 14.04 on it. The…

Cafe Vanessa in Tianeti

8 November, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 21 seen

I love roadside cafeterias, in most cases they are better or in same level as fancy restaurants. I wouldn't call Cafe Vanessa in Tianeti a roadside cafeteria, as I believe we can call it the only one in this small Georgian town.

Located next to the Kuzh park in Tianetie, at Vanesa cafe you can have tasty and cheap baked goods (stuffed pies, khachapuri), have a really huge cup of Turkish coffee and plenty of Georgian lemonades. They serve ludi (beer) and of course khinkali also.

Simple and elegant

Not cheap plastic tables. They have like 2 or 3 tables at this place, it's not very spacious, but for smaller groups - just ideal - simple and clean.

Bakes pies with potato filling and wrapped sausages

Nice street food actually, but as I said, you can order khinkali here as well.

Cafe Vanessa in Tianeti

Ankara Turkish Restaurant in Tbilisi

6 November, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 16 seen

I love Turkish cuisine, and those Turkish restaurants located in Tbilisi are very good. In fact it is thanks to the Turkish Restaurants in Georgia I learnt what halal actually is (as most of the Turkish or Persian places serve Halal exclusively)

Anyway - the story is not about halal but Ankara restaurant in Tbilisi, located on David Aghmanashebeli avenue. In short tasty lunch for a normal price, accompanied with classical Turkish sweets (bakhlava).

Chicken, vegetables and rice

Dietary and tasty.

Turkish Dolma

I love dolmas. Though you can get dolmas at almost every Tbilisi restaurant, nothing compares to dolmas at Tbilisi Turkish restaurants. I love dolmas so much, that once I even prepared them at home, see: How to Prepare Traditional Dolma (Grape Leaves Roll)

Viva Kaunas - City Under Your Feet

5 November, 2016 | Tourism objects | 18 seen

I remember from a trip to Italy, once we were in Florence - we specially searched Michelangelo Square as it promised to give the most stunning views of city. In fact it did - see: Michelangelo Square in Florence, Italy. It was at the start of August (2016) we were on a birthday trip to Vilnius, and our road took us through old Lithuanian capital city - Kaunas.

Our first stop, by chance, was at the place called Viva Kaunas - it's actually a restaurant offering to dine almost in the sky. In fact we didn't try our lunch here, but I really enjoyed the views we got from the viewing platform.

Viva Kaunas restaurant

I instead took tripod and made a panoramic photography here with a landscape of Kaunas.

Panorama of Kaunas, Lithuania

Harvesting Mushrooms in Georgia

4 November, 2016 | | 52 seen

This Summer we harvested a lot of mushrooms in the deep woods of Latvia, the nation with a strong mushroom culture. This was a good year, look some Slipery Jack even grew in the backyard of our rural house. We made a lot of delicious mushroom sauces and even preserved some (marinated mushrooms).

We returned to Georgia at the start of October, did some trip across the country in the very first five days. See: 5 Days In Georgia Itinerary List - Make Most Of Your Trip and then we agreed with a friend of us, let's have a day trips on Saturday's across the Georgia. (I look back, what we did in Saturday's about a half year ago - we hunted best Tbilisi restaurant breakfast menus, and it seems so lame now)

Without a specific destination, just the free flow. Our first trip happened to be to the very interesting (but less popular) region of Tianeti.

The town of Tianeti is reachable in about 1 hour and 30 minutes drive from Tbilisi. We were already half way there when noticed folks with baskets and buckets bustling in woods. Hmm, we thought - mushrooms. Let's give it a try. We parked our car on the roadside and entered woods of Tianeti.

…

Le Montrachet Tbilisi Restaurant Review

3 November, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 36 seen

Le Montrachet Tbilisi restaurant says it is a Neo-Bistro by a New York Chef. Progressive farm driven cuisine in a relaxed atmosphere.. Located in the historic Jewish quarter in Tbilisi Old Town (Betlemi street 23) this place offers combo menus and exclusive Georgian Wine. Eclectic, but fun. Definitely not the cheapest place in town. Awesome Combos on the other hand!

We visited this place in mid October (2016) in company of six, to get a table here I had to call and reserve it few days prior. (Never have done this in Georgia before). We reserved a table for 6 persons for Friday night. 

In fact I did find it a bit problematic to locate this place, as it is located in very remote street (thus very scenic). The places misses American style HUGE signboard. 

Once entered, I met few people I usually meet once in a year at Tbilisi Charity Fair (Folks from different Diplomatic Missions) - I exchanged  hand shakes with few and headed to the table, were our friends already waited us.

Three Course menu

Le Montrachet is one of the few places in Georgia, which offers a menu meals (the other one, as far I…

Rural Tourism in Lithuania - Karpyne

2 November, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 17 seen

Right, I actually wanted to write a short review about restaurant Karpyne located in the middle of country, but finding a translation of this place (Kaimo Turizmo Sodyba Karpyne) and browsing trough my cameras viewfinder I did find this is actually a very cool rural tourism site in Lithuania, as it offers not only restaurant, but also, lodging, fishing, there is even a separate brewery at this huge complex.

Karpyne complex is located near village Gabsiai (next to the Kaunas - Klaipeda highway), Raseiniai municipality, Kaundas county, Lithuana. We discovered this place by chance driving to Kaunas. It was lunch time and we decided to stop here.

Fishing lakes at Karpyne complex in Lithuania

Following info I found about fishing opportunities here:

Homestead  Karpynė always welcomes fishermen looking for opportunities not only to catch a big catch, but also to spend a good time, get a break from the bustle of the city and enjoy fishing in one of the three existing our ponds.
In our homestead ponds guest can catch carps, pikes, bream and other fish. If you get lucky, you could easily lure up to 18 kg weighing fish.…

How to Install & Config Drupal 8 on Ubuntu 14.04 + Ngnix

1 November, 2016 | Drupal Development | 18 seen

In this article I will provide information how to install latest Drupal 8 version on Ubuntu 14.04 machine with Nginx.

Tools involved: Putty, Notepad++

I assume you have already configured Nginx on your machine, if not, here is a tutorial for LEMP Server Ubuntu 12.04 for serving Drupal on Nginx, don't be afraid of version 12.04, as in version 14.04 the only differences that might occur are in Ngnix config blocks, which I will cover in this article.

If you are looking for a great VPS server, try Linode, I have been using it for more than 4 years and can only highly recommend, their VPS starts $10/mo.

Now, once you have all set up, open Putty and login to your server with sudo privileges:

Make sure you change admin in second row to your username

Add a new server_name

copy/paste code bellow (…

Mastis Lake in Telšiai, Lithuania

30 October, 2016 | Lakes | 17 seen

Mastis lake is located in the town of Telšiai, Lithuania.

There is a dwelling houses located in the shores of lake Mastis, and seems there is a nice recreational area built closer to the Telsiai city center.

View towards lake Mastis

Captured from the parking lot of Guesthouse Sinchronas, we stayed here for one night in August, 2016.

Recreational area near lake Mastis

Probably you can rent some boat here and enjoy a lovely boat ride.