Georgia

Table of contents

Introduction

Route

Departure from Charleroi

On December 19th we took the plane from Brussels to Kutaisi, a city in Georgia. I've never thought of going to Georgia before, but the flight was pretty cheap. The plan was to combine it with Armenia, but with the current situation that didn't seem feasible. I've heard many stories about Eastern Europe being beautiful and had already had a couple of experiences myself, so that promised to be a great holiday.

Kutaisi

So we started off in Kutaisi where we arrived at 3am, which was the second biggest city in Georgia before Batumi caught up. In Kutaisi we just spent one day and we booked one night in guesthouse Daisy's Home. Daisy was a very friendly lady, she absolutely wanted us to see every room for us to pick, to make it as comfortable as possible.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04

Because our return flight would depart from there so we would come back later. We had our first Georgian meal there, they sure like their bread and cheese. I had Khinkali, which is like dumplings, but in this case with cheese filling. They have their own cheese, called Sulguni. You can order a minimum of 5 Khinkali, there are other variants with mushroom, beef or potato fillings. They all contain a broth, you need to bite a hole and suck out the broth. Legend goes that the person that can eat the most Khinkali with spilling the least soup, must be the best kisser in town. Another dish that I had was again, cheese. This time mixed up with polenta to create some sort of pancake.

Apart from some nice views, that was pretty much all we saw in Kutaisi.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08

Batumi

The next day, on December 21st, we took a ride to Batumi, it's a coastal city with pebble beaches at the Black Sea. It is very touristy and it attracts a lot of Turks and Armenians, as it is close to the borders of those countries, that allowed it to outgrow Kutaisi and become the second largest city in Georgia. At first we went for some sightseeing along the beach promenade and downtown, where we saw the moving statue of Ali & Nino, a university building with a ferris wheel built into it what later on became a hotel, we've seen several churches, both orthodox and Catholic and a synagoge. Georgia is a mix between orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim people that live together peacefully.

Ali & Nino, The sculpture was created by famous Georgian artist and sculptor Tamar Kvesitadze. The monument has got the name of the novel "Ali and Nino" by famous Azerbaijan writer Kurban Said. The novel "Ali and Nino" tells about the tragic love story of Azerbaijan Muslim Ali Shirvashir and Georgian Christian Nino Kipiani. The events written in the book happened during the First World War in the Caucasus. The statue of Ali and Nino was created in 2010 and represents a symbol of love, despite nationality or belief.
image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20

The second day we went to Sarpi, even closer to the Turkish border, we went to see a waterfall, with a statue of apostle Andrew, the waterfall led to a tunnel that serves a purpose of being the path of enlightenment. Also we saw Gonio Fortress and Sarpi Rock.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18

Initially we booked 3 nights in Batumi, but because we didn't like Kutaisi that much, that would mean that we would have 15 days left to spend in Tbilisi. That's why we decided to book another 3 nights in Batumi, it also seemed like a nice place to spend Christmas. There are both the Catholic and Orthodox religions in Georgia, but Christmas is celebrated on January 7th. They do celebrate New Years Eve at December 31th, but on January 14th they also celebrate Old New Year. One day of Christmas we decided to stay in and create our own meal based on Georgian ingredients. They pickle a lot of things and pomegranates are used in a variety of recipes. Of course there had to be cheese.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05

The second day of Christmas we wanted to go to the Botanical garden, we wanted to do that before, but there was a lot of rain. We spent an hour in the bus and two hours of walking, only to find out that the garden was closed. We were allowed to visit the beach, but there was trash literally everywhere.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18

After that we went to several pubs, they have a lot of artisan beers here, among which a tomato beer. My expectations were a bit too high, because to me it tasted like tomato juice with beer added. Same for all other types of fruity beer. So then we came to discover chacha, a byproduct of the way they make their wine in Georgia. I will elaborate on that in the Tbilisi chapter. There is plain chacha, chacha aged in oak and tarragon, peach and honey are also very popular. There are a lot of other flavours as well, like four chilies, chily-berry, garlic, ginger, orange-cloves, kiwi, anything you can think of. They put chacha with those ingredients in a big jar and let it age for a while. The ones that I found most interesting and also liked most were the chily one and the garlic one.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16

We stayed in Royal Orbi Hotel and for the second booking we needed to move from tower A to tower C. It was a very weird experience, every tower had it's own reception, but for our booking we needed to go to a reception on the floor itself, which was setup pretty sketchy in a hotel room. For the second booking there wasn't even a reception, we arrived on time for our appointment, but the owner wasn't there and he decided to call us after midnight, when we were going out downtown, to collect his money. When we arrived back in the hotel, he was waiting for us in the lobby to collect his cash. After payment, we went upstairs and our keycard appeared to be disabled. We could resolve the issue, but this was our first encounter with the weird Georgian customs. Both rooms looked the same (just mirrored), but one had a fridge and a hairdryer, the other had a washing machine and a microwave. Georgians seem very fond of toilet paper was only one role present, we had to go to the reception on each next day to pickup a new one and these weren't the last bookings where this was a thing.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05

Tbilisi

On December 27th we took the train to Tbilisi, where we arrived in the weirdest hostel ever, called "Modely". The room was empty with only 2 camping beds with the mattresses covered in plastic, I think we should have been glad they were, to have some sense of hygiene. A weird contraption should have functioned as a shelving unit. If you put something on, it would collapse. The shower had only cold water, there was no toilet paper and the lobby was used for the owner to chill out with his friends.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17

This didn't feel right at all, so we decided to pay for the night and leave right away. We came across a guesthouse "Tents in Georgia", which was infinitely better. We slept in a tent inside the house, which was quite a nice concept. THe owner was very friendly and helpful and we ended up in a pubcrawl with them and other guests and people who live there.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12

The first full day we were in Tbilisi we booked a free tour through the city with David. He told us about Liberty Square, Europe Square, the Mother of Georgia statue on the top of the mountain. The Freedom Bridge, the Tamada statue and introduced us to the sulfur baths which are supposed to have healing capabilities. We gladly took those the next day. It is believed that it will bring intelligence if you rub the head of the Tamada statue, to bring prosperity if you rub his glass or to bring fertility if you rub his lap. If you sit on his lap you will be rewarded with all three.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20
image-21
image-22
image-23
image-24
image-25
image-26
image-27
image-28

We planned a day trip to Armenia, the original plan was to visit both countries and spend an equal amount of time in both Georgia and Armenia by flying from Tbilisi to Yerevan. But because there was some stuff going on between Azerbaijan and Armenia, we decided to stick to Georgia and do a day trip to some border villages in Armenia. This appeared to be a big adventure, because it's close to New Years Day and this was the time families get united.

We visited three monasteries which all were located on top of mountains and offered great views. It was also near a copper factory which was still in use. We also went to a ghost town, the cable cars where still dangling in the air as it stopped mid-service. I believe that was because war was declared. Both Georgia and Armenia have been in wars a lot because of their strategical position, Silk Road goes right through them. Tbilisi is also very rough, because every time they built anything up again, some new war is declared.

We also went to a family guest house, to have a typical Armenian lunch. The coffee is very similar to Turkish coffee and of course we had some booze, we could choose between wine and brandy. Back on the road we walked into a guy who had a market stand with souvenirs, but he also distilled his own chacha. Of course he didn't let us leave before we tasted some of his produce.

The trip was a big adventure, on the border towards Armenia we were warned that it could take a while to get back to Georgia and she pointed to the line. On the way back the line seemed to be multiple kilometers long and if we had to wait it could have taken more than 10 hours to get back. Our tour guide Kat was great, because she was very knowledgeable and taught us a lot about the cultures and also was great with keeping the group together. She even managed to arrange alternative transport, a van that was waiting for us at the other side of the border. Without that we might even have needed to wait twice as long. I feel sorry for the driver, because he only got back home the next afternoon.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20
image-21
image-22
image-23
image-24
image-25
image-26
image-27
image-28
image-29
image-30
image-31
image-32
image-33
image-34
image-35
image-36
image-37
image-38
image-39
image-40
image-41
image-42
image-43
image-44
image-45
image-46
image-47
image-48
image-49
image-50
image-51
image-52

An off day to get some rest before celebrating new year's eve. We decided to sleep late and get some groceries to prepare dinner. If we woke up early we probably would have fainted half way through the celebrations. We had some pomegranate wine and some more exotic drinks that we got from our trip to Armenia. We watched fireworks at Freedom Square at midnight and after that we went for a pub crawl with the people from the hostel. We visited several pubs and afterwards I went to a funny place with some of the guys to play beer games. I really enjoyed although was really hung over afterwards.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05

Next day we took it at our own pace and decided to take the metro to the end station and slowly progressed towards the hostel, station by station. We saw a market which was very busy and of course a day is not complete without a Georgian meal. I tried all versions of the Khinkali: mushroom, cheese, minced meat, but I liked the mushroom one the most.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14

On January 2nd we did a wine tour to Telavi and Kakheti, where we also visited the Bodbe Monastery in Sighnaghi, which is also called the love city. We were welcomed at our first stop at 9:30am with a wine tasting, some chacha and we got to make some churchkhela.

In Georgia they have their own way of wine making, which is way older than the French version. It dates to 6000 years BC and it is part of the Unesco world heritage. In France they only use the grape juice, but in Georgia they use the whole grape. They put it in a Kvevri clay jarunder ground where they let it sit to ferment. After a while they take the juice to another jar to ripen further, leaving the residu so that it can be used to distill chacha. This also leaves a residu, which is then boiled and used to create churchkhela. This is made by hanging nuts on a rope and dipping it in the cooking emulsion. Because it takes a very long time to go off, it was used to feed their armies. You can read a more detailed version of thie wine making process on Wikipedia. I even started liking white wine again, the ones I liked most were the white Khikhvi and the red Saperavi. There are loads more to try though.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20
image-21
image-22
image-23
image-24
image-25
image-26
image-27
image-28
image-29
image-30
image-31
image-32
image-33
image-34
image-35
image-36
image-37
image-38
image-39
image-40
image-41
image-42
image-43
image-44
image-45
image-46
image-47
image-48
image-49
image-50
image-51
image-52

We wanted to see the Chronicles of Georgia, which were located on top of a hill, just outside of the city. This offered great views over the city and Tbilisi Sea and the Chronicles itself were huge. You can see on the photos where there are a few people as a reference. In the evening we went to Mtatsminda Park. This is an amusement park on top of a mountain right next to the city. We went up with a bus, only to discover that every single attraction was closed, except for bumper carts, where we were the only ones to enjoy. It did offer some nice views over Tbilisi by night, but apart from that it was quite a waste of time, shame that it wasn't mentioned anywhere.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20
image-21
image-22
image-23
image-24
image-25
image-26

We did another guided tour and went to the Highlights of Kaukasus Mountains, to the Jinvali water reservoir which had a castle on top. The story he told was very cool, it was about several towers which acted as beacons during war. If there was a war coming, a beacon was lit, sending the message to the next which was then lit and so on. It really gave a Lord of the Rings feel to it. Furthermore we went to Ananuri, Gudauri. We planned to go to Kazbegi but the road was closed because there might be avalanches. Georgia has a lot of micro climates, in Tbilisi it was around 15 degrees while it was snowing just several kilometres north. In Batumi we experienced tropical rain. Instead of Kazbegi we went to the old capital Mtskheta. Because of the very cold temperatures we experienced, it was very nice to enjoy another sulfur bath afterwards.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20
image-21
image-22
image-23
image-24
image-25
image-26
image-27
image-28
image-29
image-30

Today we went on another free city tour, did some more wine and chacha tasting which obviously couldn't be omitted. We were told some more about the wine traditions and the sulfur baths, it was a bit hard to follow for me because the tour was mainly in Spanish. Afterwards we went to a liquor store to get us some souvenirs and almost left those drunk, because we were somewhat forced to tasted several of them. All of the chacha flavours are home made, I took a kiwi one and an aged one. In the afternoon we went to the museum of illusions.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16

Last day, train back to Kutaisi, spent a night in Charleroi because of delays. Below are some random pictures. We arrived back home at January 7th.

image-01
image-02
image-03
image-04
image-05
image-06
image-07
image-08
image-09
image-10
image-11
image-12
image-13
image-14
image-15
image-16
image-17
image-18
image-19
image-20