Author: Oli

While the transition from Greece to Turkey felt gradual, the difference between eastern Turkey and Georgia was immediate. Food instantly became more varied, Islam changed to Christianity, clothing became less conservative, the Latin alphabet became Mkhedruli script and the structured coach network was replaced with an informal collection of marshrutkas. After three weeks in Asia, it felt like we’d re-entered Europe.

Transport

We travelled from Batumi in the west to Tbilisi in the east almost exclusively by marshrutkas.

While we loved the organised chaos of marshrutkas, the lack of certainty kept us on our toes regarding whether they departed on a schedule or when full, and whether passengers should buy a ticket or pay the driver. We also found that driver care on the road varied wildly, and it seemed that essential requirements included a huge crack across the windscreen and reliably departing before closing the sliding minibus door. We also witnessed many pre-departure altercations between fellow passengers and sometimes the driver. We think the source of these arguments related to who sat where and whether the passenger had bought a ticket before reserving a seat, but we’ll never know for sure. The best part of these situations was that inevitably, every passenger on the marshrutka threw in their two cents, while we sat helplessly and watched it unfold.

While there are train lines in Georgia, there are generally only one or two trains a day, often at inconvenient times of day (or night!). We were most excited about the scenic Borjomi-Bakuriani railway, but sadly this route hasn’t restarted since it was paused during the pandemic. Still, I managed to weave a round-trip train journey into our day trip to Gori.

We enjoyed the amount of bureaucracy that went in to the purchase of this train ticket, despite Gori only being 79 km from Tbilisi. Our passports were required, seats were allocated, and after lots of typing, we were presented with an airline-style ticket each. And after all that, we found some people sitting in our seats anyway.

Carbon

Our route across Georgia was our second most carbon intensive journey so far, despite also being the shortest distance we’d travelled within a single country. This is largely because I’ve classified our marshrutka journeys as “average local bus”, which is nearly 4 times more carbon intensive than “coach”, according the the UK government’s carbon database. This is probably an overestimation of our carbon emissions, but it’s the best I could do with the available data.

This brings our total carbon emissions from transport since leaving London to 676 kgCO2e, so we’re now well over halfway towards the minimum offset size of 1,000 kgCO2e.

Cost

We spent less money per day and less money in total in Georgia compared to any other country we’ve visited so far. This was despite feasting on Georgian delicacies in some great restaurants while we were there.

Transport costs were responsible for less than 10% of our expenditure in Georgia. This proportion is similar to Turkey, but noticeably less than the proportion spent on transport in Italy and Greece. Despite travel by marshrutka being quite hair-raising at times, they really were cost-effective. For instance, we travelled the 267 km from Batumi in the south to Mestia in the north for the equivalent of £16.50 each.

Cats

We saw about 5 cats per day in Georgia, which sadly doesn’t even hold a candle to Greece or Turkey’s totals.

We did meet some particularly fine chaps though – quality not quantity!

🏅Award for the cutest flood barrier

🏅Award for the most co-ordinated cat gang

We also saw plenty of dogs, although these were not counted so rigorously. At first we were apprehensive of stray dogs when they approached us in the street or while we were hiking, but it was hard to not feel attached when they would quietly follow you for hours purely for company and the chance of a scrap of food. We also noticed that most of them had tags in their ears, presumably to track and record health status, which I thought was pretty impressive. Still, I think my favourite photo is this one of a stack of snoozing Georgian puppies.

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From Tbilisi, we took the overnight sleeper train to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, although this wasn’t where the day’s journey ended…

Borjomi, also known as the pearl of the Caucasus, is a small resort town in central Georgia. It’s well known throughout ex-Soviet countries for its natural mineral water springs, which are said to have many healing properties, and it’s a popular bottled drink throughout the region. We stayed two nights here, which gave us one full day to make the most of Borjomi’s offerings.

Most of Borjomi’s sites are situated in a gorge cut between the mountains by the Borjomula river. The river is criss-crossed by a number of bridges, including the one below, which also featured a charming guard who inspected passers by between naps in the sun.

From the bridge, we continued upstream, passing countless market stalls and some impressively ornate architecture. This is where the fancier resort hotels are located, but alas it was a little walk for us from the main town centre.

Arriving in Borjomi’s Central Park, we were greeted by some very well sculpted gardens, and the source of the town’s fame – a water fountain created from one of the gorge’s many natural springs. We quickly downed one of our bottles of tap water to create an empty vessel, and Sara went to fill it up.

She subsequently tried it and pulled a face, before handing it to me. It was certainly an acquired taste – warm, subtly carbonated, sweet and salty on the palette with an eggy aftertaste. Just what I needed to settle my stomach.

Not wanting to waste it, Sara kept the Borjomi water in her bottle for several days after this. She insisted that she was drinking and enjoying it, while in reality getting increasingly dehydrated.

We continued through the park past what is apparently the “most extensive ecologically-themed amusement park in the Caucasus.” You can’t argue with that! However, each of the rides was motionless, with many under covers already. I guess we’re well into shoulder season now, and we’d seen plenty of photos of the town under snow in the winter. Still, we amused ourselves on anything that wasn’t bolted down.

Continuing further upstream, the fairground rides ran out leaving just a path beside the river, which produced a constant and soothing accompaniment of white noise as we walked. The path weaved its way across over the river via a series of increasingly rotten bridges, on which old and broken slats had been covered up by new wood, giving them a patchwork appearance.

Eventually, after some back and forth (we were under some confusion – no change there), we arrived at our destination – a trio of hot (well, warm-ish) pools filled from the mountain’s famous springs. Similar to the fountain, these also gave off a pungent sulphur smell, but were just mild enough in temperature to encourage us in for a short wallow. Much like drinking the water, soaking in the pools is supposed to cure some motor and nerve-related ailments, along with pretty much everything else. An information board aroused our suspicions when it described the pools as being highly effective at curing symptoms that were already in remission. Hmmmm.

Upon exiting the park, we couldn’t pass up the chance to ride yet another cable car. This one took us back over the park, and up to the top of a cliff overlooking the gorge along with the rest of the Borjomi.

Sara assured me that it wasn’t anywhere near as shonky as the one she rode a few days earlier in Kutaisi, although its departure from the lower station was slightly more violent.

We were met at the top by yet another rusting Ferris wheel, although this one didn’t look like it had seen any visitors in quite a while. Not wishing to push our luck any further, we opted to walk back down to the park via a highly educational nature trail. This was all fun and games until we spotted a snake rustling through the bushes next to path, prompting a rendition of Sara’s famous “Snakey watch, Spider watch” song (memorable for her bold attempt to rhyme ‘watch’ and ‘forest’), as we hurriedly descended back to the relative safety of the central park.

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All in all, Borjomi provided a very enjoyable mountain retreat en route to Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. Still, we were also excited to return to the modern luxuries of a big city, such as craft beer and Airbnbs with washing machines.

Svaneti is a mountainous region in northern Georgia, famous for its natural beauty, defensive towers, and distinct culture and language. Putting these three together make Svan towns popular destinations in themselves, as well as a great base for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. Svaneti had its first snowfall of the year while we were sheltering from the rain in Batumi, which meant the surrounding mountains were already topped with perfectly white crowns, glistening in the autumn sun. We had two full days in Svaneti, both of which we spent exploring the mountains on foot.

Our route to Mestia (the main town in Upper Svaneti) started with a 1 hour pre-breakfast walk through Batumi, accompanied for most of the route by a dog friend that we picked up on the way. At first we were more than a little apprehensive, but he was happy to trot a good distance beside us for company and on the off-chance of a bit of food.

From Batumi’s bus station, it took about six and a half hours split across two marshruktas before we finally arrived in Mestia. We passed some absolutely epic scenery on the road through the mountains, with Sara opting to sleep rather than look out of the window of our slightly-faster-than-comfortable ride.

Day 1: Hike to the Cross Over Mestia

We woke the next morning to clear skies and views of snowy peaks from our guesthouse window.

For our first day hike, we chose to walk up to The Cross Above Mestia, which is basically a viewpoint on top of the nearest mountain. Although only 5.5 km in horizontal distance, this hike also involved 800m of elevation gain. The cobbled road rose steeply out of the town, gradually turning into a dirt track, before meeting a rocky footpath that snaked up the mountain through the trees. With a climb so steep, there were plenty of opportunities for us to pretend to take in the views while catching our breath.

While the climb itself was pretty hot in the morning sun, as we approached the summit we were met with a very welcome cool breeze. Next to the cross was a covered wooden platform reached by a ladder that provided the perfect spot to enjoy our lunch of chocolate spread sandwiches and oranges (a truly inspired pairing).

As we got up to leave, one of the resident platform dogs also stood up and stretched, before taking the lead on our descent down the mountain. He’d happily trot on ahead, then just as we thought he’d left us, he’d be waiting around the next turn. He was a very affable chap, and we named him Timmy. The three of us stopped at a viewpoint near the bottom of the mountain allowing another group of hikers to catch up with us. They remarked how cute our dog was, and I replied how he’d been a loyal friend, at which point he deserted us and followed the other group down to the village.

Day 2: Zhamushi to Mestia

The following day we took a taxi to Zhamushi with the plan to walk the first stretch of the famous 4 day path from Mestia to Ushguli (but in reverse). However, not only did our taxi driver not fancy driving up the dirt road to Zhamushi (somewhat understandably, we realised later when we walked it), he also claimed not to have any change when we tried to pay. We both checked our wallets thoroughly which didn’t resolve anything, and proceeded to sit there for a few minutes at a bit of an impasse. The taxi driver even piled on some further pressure by flagging down a passing car under the pretence of helping to make change. It was only when I insisted on walking up the (unbeknownst to me quite steep) hill to Zhamushi to split our note, that our driver finally remembered that he did have change after all. You’ve gotta respect the theatre involved in his negotiation though – we were there a good 10 minutes.

With the correct fare paid, we began the bonus 200m of ascent that I’d hoped to avoid via our taxi ride, and put the whole affair behind us. The rest of our planned hike was quite different to the first day, with a steady 200m of ascent followed by a gradual 500m of descent into Mestia, all the while traversing a couple of mountains via a 9.5km path.

We stopped for lunch at another dramatic viewpoint for round two of our chocolate-orange extravaganza. It felt like we had the whole valley to ourselves, until another couple of hikers turned up, along with the obligatory stray dog who had decided they were now friends for life. He was very happy to pose in return for little of our lunch.

Svan cuisine

While it’s not like us to return to the same restaurant, we ended up eating at Cafe Laila two nights running, and at no point did it disappoint.

The star of the show was the Kubdari – Svaneti’s national dish (on the left of the above photo). The large circular flatbread consisted of two layers of soft dough wrapped around small chunks of intensely seasoned steak, herbs and onion. The flavour definitely reminded us of something, but neither of us could put our finger on exactly what. Either way, it was totally delicious.

Next up was Ojakuri – a typical dish shared during a family meal (in the foreground of the photo). This was made up of pork, potatoes, onion, a generous amount of garlic and white wine, topped with pomegranite seeds, which Sara elegantly described as “the perfect symphony of flavour” (although she was well into the homemade wine by this point).

Finally, the pot in the middle of the photo was Lobio Kotanshi – a salty bean and coriander stew. While this dish didn’t change our life, it complemented the other headliners very nicely indeed.

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Mestia (and Svaneti) certainly grew on us throughout our stay. While Mestia is far from easily accessible, the rewards for the journey more than justify the effort. I’m really glad we’ve been able to explore this part of Georgia so far from its capital city.

Our next stop will be Kutaisi – Georgia’s third largest city, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in Europe.