Eventhough in Georgia live only around 4 million people, the diversity of culture is there huge. Every region has something special, something authentic, that you cannot find anywhere else. During our trip, we visited (unfortunately) only Tbilisi, Kakheti (famous for their wine production), Samstkhe-Javakheti (gorgeous Rabati castle in Akhaltsikhe and cave city Vardzia) and Mtskheta. 

We were accommodated 2x in hostels in Telavi and Tbilisi through Couchsurfing. Both of them were very basic, but it was fun. Otherwise, private room in Akhaltsikhe and Mtskheta cost us around 15€ for one night. Most of the time, we ate in restaurants and enjoyed great meals, that they were offering to us. The good thing on the Georgian cuisine is, that not only meat-eaters will feel like in heaven. They have a really huge choice of vegetarian dishes (such as khinkali with cottage cheese, Khachapuri or basically all vegetables combined with some kind of walnut sauce – Georgians love walnuts!). They have really great bread (baked with the traditional methodology in a rounded oven. For wine lovers – Georgia is the right country to choose if you want to drink great (red) wine. Our favourite one was Saperavi -dry, red. We were so much in love with that, that we didn`t even give a chance to some white wine. Bottle costs on average 7€ in a restaurant. Everywhere in Georgia (and Azerbaijan as well), you will meet people (old, young, men, women) eating sunflower seeds from the skin. I am very bad at it, but in Georgia, it seems that it is like their folklore kind of thing. So basically always when some group of people leaves the place where they were staying, there will be a huge amount of leftovers. 

TBILISI 

Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia) was our first stop during this trip. We got there after taking aeroplane to Istanbul and than another one (after 5 hours of waiting in the Starbucks, where they didn’t have WiFi) directly to Tbilisi. The good thing on the Istanbul waiting time was, that we met in Starbucks some Georgian woman (who was a doctor) called Maya. She was really nice to us and gave us some general tips about the country. When we went out of the airport in Tbilisi, she offered us a taxi and than also paid for us. She said, that we are her guests. Such a nice first impression of Georgian people! It was around 4 a.m. in the morning, so we went to some nonstop shop to buy coffee. After that, we went (with our heavy backpacks) to the Mother of Georgia statue to watch the sunrise. That place was absolutely perfect to see it because it is on the hill and you can see the whole city from that place. Most of the time, we were alone there, but around 6 a.m., some Asian tourists came to take pictures. Right next to the Mother of Georgia is located the botanic garden, which was unfortunately still closed (because it was too early). We also visited the Tbilisi fortress Narikala (where the security guy there was pretty angry with us for no reason). After walking on the hill, we decided to leave our backpacks in some hostel in the old town. We went for a coffee, but it didn’t work so much. Right after that, we found some park and slept there on a bench for some time. Just before the free walking tour (which was starting at 11 a.m.), we went to buy SIMcard in order to have internet all the time (is really handy for maps and information about places, booking etc.). It was really cheap in comparison to the Czech Republic. It was about 1€ for 1Giga of data. So really worthy. 

 

Our guide on the free tour was actually English. But he loves Georgia and especially Tbilisi so much, that he started to be engaged there also as a politician. Really cool guy, explained us many many details and did the tour for almost 4 hours. I need to admit, that it was bit too long, but we were not strong enough to just leave because those things, that he was saying were pretty interesting. And he did also one break for khachapuri, water and ice cream (I think, that he actually bought all of these for himself haha). Our tour ended next to the waterfalls. Everywhere there around, it smells after sulphur, since there is a source of healing water in Tbilisi. Than we just went to a restaurant (had some Pkhali, vegetable soup with dill and salmon salad). In the late afternoon, we tried to find the hostel (Couchsurfing with Deniz), where we were supposed to stay for the following 2 nights. That place was pretty interesting. Not really tidy and bit confusing at the beginning. Nobody was able to tell us, where Deniz is. But finally, we managed to get our beds. We were sleeping in the same room as Deniz. This guy was smoking weed all the time and talking about nudism a lot. We also met in the hostel some American guy, who was just chilling in Tbilisi for a few months and writing his book. Javi also talked a bit with two Armenian students who joined the army a few years ago. 

 

The next day, we visited the Chronicles of Georgia (it is located a little bit far from the centre, but is pretty reachable with the public transport. From that place, you can observe the Tbilisi sea, which seems surprisingly clean. Just blue pure water. Later, we visited flea market (Dry Bridge Bazaar) on a bridge while going back to the centre. At 4 p.m., there was a tour called “Hidden Tbilisi”. So we joined and it was awesome! The girl showed us many hidden buildings and places outside of the city centre. We met on the tour very nice German guy called Johannes. We went together for dinner and decided to meet also in the night for some wine in the Art-Cafe HOME bar. We had a bottle of Saperavi and continued to some other bar next to our hostel. Apparently, it is a really cool place for Techno, but unfortunately, that night, they were closing at 2 a.m. So at least we went to the bed more or less early and were more fresh for the next day. 

 

We came many times back to Tbilisi during this trip. The transport in Georgia is pretty centralized in Tbilisi, so you usually need to come back to Tbilisi in order to visit some different city or place. Between smaller towns, it is usually not possible to travel by public transport. Our last day in Tbilisi was also the last day in Georgia. We visited the Open – Air Ethnographic Museum and borrowed bikes. Biking was really fun even if Tbilisi is not really bike-friendly city. Ah and I forgot! I did some workout and running in the morning! 🏃‍♀️

 

Mtskheta ⛪

Our next stop before going to the mountains was Mtskheta. The previous capital of Georgia. We took marshrutka for 1 Lari and got there in about 20 minutes. The city of Mtskheta is lovely. There is a cathedral and some restaurants and market around. If you want to see the main attraction which is the Jvari monastery, you would probably need to take taxi. Of course, it is possible to just go there by foot, but it will take you much more time. It is 12 km far from the centre. The Taxi cost us 20Lari. We did lovely pictures and went back. In the evening, we did small stretching/workout on some children playground and after that, we moved to have dinner next to the Svetiskhoveli Cathedral. I had for the first time beans in a pot and Mchadi. Mchadi is a great cornbread. I was buying it very often in restaurants also to go, to have something to eat the whole day (since my digestion doesn’t really work properly when eating wheat products). In the morning next day, we went back to Tbilisi and took another marshrutka to Kazbegi (article about hiking in Georgia here).

 

TELAVI 🍷

At first, we didn’t plan to go to Telavi at all. This city (one of the bigger ones in Georgia) was recommended us by our friend from Prague Emerick. And why? Because of the wine. We were hosted there in the hostel AJIME by Tengo. It was really funny when we arrived, because it seemed that everybody knows everyone in that city. We asked just some random guys, if they know, who Tengo is, and they directly called him and were really nice with us. In the hostel, we met pretty cool travellers. Two girls, who are travelling for a year, some old danish guy who is just travelling around for months and enjoying his life and also German guy, who is staying in Telavi already for 1 year and doesn’t really feel like talking about the reason for it. We went to explore the city, visited some museum and also a bazaar. The bazaar was really cool and authentic. In the afternoon, we went to some small village (again with marshurtka) to see the traditional methodology of doing wine in Kakheti. The tour and also the wine (we had the chance to taste some special black wine, which was a little bit sparkling) was excellent. There came also more people from the village, smoked joints and just had good time with us. Finally, the tasting was too expensive in my opinion (30 Lari = 10€ each). We needed to take taxi to get back to Telavi, so we needed to spend more money again, but that was ok. We had a great time. In the hostel, we had some joints more with Tengo and went pretty exhausted to sleep. The next day, we took marshurtka to some village before going to Tusheti national park. But about there trip, you can read in my second article about Georgia here.

 

Akhaltsikhe 🏰

Akhaltsikhe is a beautiful town, which is worthy to see. But not only as a day trip from Tbilisi. The ride there will take you more than 3 hours with marshrutka (for 10 Lari). It would be ideal to combine it with a trip to Batumi since it is on the way. Batumi was on our plan from the beginning, but in the end, we didn’t visit that city (and the Black Sea neither 😢) because there were storms for 2 weeks (which are not the perfect conditions for chilling on the beach and catching sun). We had big problems to find our guesthouse in Akhaltsikhe. The adress, which was typed in booking.com was not correct. And it took us more than an hour to realise, that we are not going to find it at all. We left our backpacks in some random house and went to visit the Rabati castle. It was really exciting place. The castle is actually almost whole reconstructed, but it is just lovely to walk around there. We bought a guide, but the tour was shorter than expected. But pretty ok (While visiting the Vardzia the following day, the guide was much much worse). In the evening, we finally got in touch with the guys from our guesthouse (We asked some Georgian woman to call them) and they picked us up with their car and took us to their place. The room that we got was impressive. Really beautiful furniture and a lot of space. It was actually not really guesthouse. This family was just hiring some of their rooms to tourists. So in the evening and in the morning, we were having food all together. There was not really seperate place for us and for them. Pretty interesting, that the family lets foreign people to come directly to their house, see their kitchen, bathroom etc. We met there some Russian mother with her son. She was drinking red wine the whole night and having fun. For me, it was pretty clear that I just wanted to chill and sleep. So I did. 

 

Vardzia (the cave town)

To Vardzia, the only option how to see more places (and not go there directly with marshrutka) was to take a taxi. It seems, that there is agreed price of 50 Lari for going there and back. It is pretty expensive but worthy. The guy will stop whenever you want. We visited also some public bath, some castle and we also had the chance to stop for a while in the beautiful valley before arriving to Vardzia and take some pictures. This is the biggest advantage of taking a taxi. He stops where you want. So always before going somewhere with marshrutka, make sure that you are not going to miss anything important. Vardzia is a very insta-friendly place. We ordered a guide there as well but it was terrible. The woman was not able to answer basic questions and it was really hard to understand her. After coming back from Vardzia, we took marshrutka back to Tbilisi to save some time. We had a great dinner in some vegan bistro, had a walk and went back to sleep in the hostel. It was the last day in Georgia before taking the night train to Baku.