On Tuesday 7th of July, we flew to Tbilisi, Georgia. We arrived in the afternoon and transferred to our hotel, the Astoria Tbilisi (AU$102.94 per night). We then went for a walk downtown. The hotel was located about 15 minutes walk from the main centre of town, and was situated mostly uphill from everywhere. We discovered Black Dog Bar, a cool bar with a ‘Big Lebowski’ theme. The staff were really friendly and they had good beers and cocktails on the menu. We watched Argentina beat Egypt in the FIFA World Cup. The bartender was an Argentina supporter, so we cheered his team home.
After a bad night’s sleep with no air conditioning, we again went out to explore the local area, including Liberty Square and the Old Town. We had dinner at a nice wine bar before heading back to the Black Dog. The following day we discovered another cool wine bar Kancellaria Natural Wine Bar, that had amazing Baja Fish Tacos and Flatbreads. We returned several times while in Tbilisi.
On the Friday evening, we joined a 7-day G Adventures Georgia Uncovered tour. The group consisted of 16 people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. We returned to the Kancellaria Wine Bar and Black Dog Bar that evening.The following morning we met the group to head out on another walking tour of the downtown Tbilisi area.
On the Sunday morning, we caught a bus to the northern part of the country and the village of Stepantsminda, where we transferred to 4WD vehicles for a visit to a local family where we prepared Khinkali (a Georgian meat dumpling). We enjoyed them for lunch with other traditional Georgian dishes (including an amazing beef casserole) and several nips of a local brandy. We then hopped back into the 4WDs and made our way to the Gergeti Trinity Church, before returning to our bus and making our way to the village of Gudauri and our night’s accommodation at the Gudauri Inn.
We enjoyed a few beers overlooking the valley behind the Inn. The scenery was so green, with views of the Caucasus mountains through the clouds as the sun went down.
The following morning we had a quick breakfast in a crazy-busy dining area before returning to the bus for the drive to Uplistsikhe, an ancient city from the 7th century BC which was carved out of rock. We spent some time exploring the area before heading to the village of Gori, where some people visited the Stalin Museum. We then caught the bus to Kutaisi where we checked into the Best Western Kutaisi City Center and headed out for our first and only group dinner of the tour.
The following day I was feeling very congested and had a bad cough, so I stayed in bed while Bernii went with the tour group to visit the Martvili Canyon. After a short walk through the canyon past cascading waterfalls and misty streams, the group boarded small boats to paddle a short part of the gorge before enjoying coffee and honey cake at the cafe. It was a magical morning.
On the bus ride back to Kutaisi, the group made a special stop at Tskaltubo to see Soviet era sanatoriums and bath houses. It was eerily quiet wandering through the abandoned hotels and other buildings.
The next day we visited the Bagrati Cathedral before hopping back on the bus to make our way back to Tbilisi. Along the way, we stopped at the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, but by that time we were getting a bit over cathedrals. We also stopped at a family home for a cooking demonstration of Khachapuri (a round flatbread filled with melted cheese) where we also had some grilled pork meat, bread, cheese, salad, and eggplant with walnuts.
We arrived back in Tbilisi where we spent one last night at the Hotel Astoria Tbilisi, before saying our goodbyes and moving to the more conveniently located (and overall just better) Ibis Styles Tbilisi Center hotel (AU$166.41 per night). We spent the next few days resting up as I was still getting over the flu, before we visited the Tbilisi Wine Museum, returned to Kancellaria Wine Bar, and Black Dog Bar.
We really enjoyed our time in Georgia, however we found the tour to be a bit disappointing as far as value for money. It would have been much better to have had more opportunities to get to know the group, especially since it was a fairly short tour. After all, that is one of the main factors for us choosing to do group tours instead of just doing it all ourselves. In the end, we met many amazing people and shared plenty of chacha, beers, wine and brandy. And congratulations to Spain for winning last night’s FIFA World Cup final (commiserations to the barman for Argentina’s loss).
This evening we fly from Tbilisi to Geneva, Switzerland, where we begin the next leg of our adventure. Check out our recent post: Travel Tips After 18 Month On The Road.
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