Month: March 2018

Are there any positives about travelling to the former Russian Republic of Georgia? In my previous posts I have written about some pretty negative experiences I had whilst I was there. Well I would say the best reason to visit Georgia is to spend time in Tbilisi.

Tbilisi was the reason I’d wanted to visit Georgia for all those years. I’d wanted to go ever since I saw Juliet Morris go there on the Travel Show in 1999, it looked like a fascinating city. And it turned out that it was.

I’d ended up in Kutaisi in Georgia because it was the cheapest way to get into the country.  The low cost airlines were flying there rather than into Tbilisi.  However, after the theft of my iPod and my bizarre experience with the Georgian police, I got out of Kutaisi the next day and I arrived in the capital city, Tbilisi.

My journey to Tbilisi was not pleasant. I got one of the collective minibuses from Kutaisi which were cheap, but they were also cramped and dirty and uncomfortable. The owner of the first hotel I stayed at in Kutaisi took me to the place where the minibuses to Tbilisi leave from, but he ripped me off, which was a common occurrence in Georgia. I was viewed as a rich Western tourist and most of the taxi drivers and tourist establishments charged well over the odds and did their best to rip me off. In this instance, the owner short changed me, it didn’t amount to much, but even so, I don’t like being cheated and was determined he wouldn’t get any more money out of me; when I returned to Kutaisi, I’d be staying elsewhere.

Anyway, the minibus to Tbilisi only cost 10 Lari, which is the equivalent of about £3. So it was definitely cheap. After my poor experience in Kutaisi, I was thankful that my next guesthouse was much better and this was also the only place I stayed during my entire time in Georgia, where the owners didn’t attempt to rip me off.

I was overcharged by another taxi driver to get to my guesthouse. I was told by the guesthouse owner that the taxi driver Mafia is the only thing the government haven’t managed to stamp out yet. The guesthouse owner took me into the city in his car one morning, because no taxi would come and pick me up because they were only looking for extortionate fares from tourists and if it’s from a local guesthouse where the owners know how much taxis really cost, they won’t pick you up.

I subsequently used the Taxify App, basically the Georgian version of Uber, where they call a taxi for you, tell you the driver’s name, car and registration and the cars are fitted with trackers so they can’t cheat you. Unfortunately this App was only available in Tbilisi. But I used Taxify for the rest of the time I was in Tbilisi and found it to be an excellent service. I was also so grateful to finally find honest taxi drivers, I always gave them a big tip.

Yes, my guesthouse in Tbilisi was lovely. The beds were so comfortable. They had a layer on top of the mattress that made it really soft, the only other person I know who does that is my mother! Initially it looked like it was way off the beaten track and a long way out of the city.  In reality it was only a 20 minute walk to anywhere you needed to be, although it was up a steep hill. It was actually very close to Mtatsminda Hill, the highest point in the city, so you did have a climb back up to it at the end of your sightseeing day. Despite that, if I ever did go back to Tbilisi, I would definitely stay there again.

I can’t say Tbilisi felt the safest place in the world to me when I first ventured out to explore, and it is a big city, 1.5 million population. But after spending a fair bit of time there, I felt more comfortable, even when I was walking back to my guesthouse at night in the dark.

I had 3 plans for my time in Tbilisi, the cable car to Narikala Fortress, one of the sulphur baths in Tbilisi, which I covered in a previous article, and the funicular up Mtatsminda Hill.

First was the cable car. I bought myself a transport card for 60p and loaded it up with £1. That was more than enough to get me up the cable car and back. Then I headed up the hill. First off I went to see the statue of the Mother of Georgia.

Then I followed the signs to get to the Narikala Fortress. The fortress was the location I remembered seeing on the Travel Show, I recalled it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1827 and has only partially been restored.

I could see some people at the top of a tower with a cross on the top and also people at some other towers. I could see there was no proper path to some of the towers, it was just a scramble.  My view was slightly obscured, but I assumed the tower with the cross would be different because it was the main tower of the fortress.

I walked down the pathway to find the entrance where I assumed there would be properly delineated signposted footpaths with steps where appropriate and a handy printed map. Seriously had I learnt nothing during my time in Georgia? A handy printed map? What was I thinking?

The Narikala Fortress was exactly the same as just about every other place I’d visited while in Georgia, stone and sand, rough paths of varying degrees of difficulty, which I presumed were graded on how brave you felt. There were steep steps with no handrail and a feeling of, “should I actually be climbing this?” but you see that everybody else does. And there are no rails to stop you, so you do too.

I climbed one part of the fortress wall, at this point I was still suffering from the delusion that there might be a proper footpath to the tower with the cross on top, I searched for one, but of course, it didn’t exist. So I followed the easiest of the rough, stone paths to the tower and then there was nothing for it but climbing the walls as best you could to get to the top. It actually was okay, I found the slippery sandy path a lot more difficult than the climbing up and down, there was plenty to hold on to on the tower walls.

There were 3 lasses from Iran travelling together and they offered to help me in my climb up the tower, but I managed fine on my own. Once at the top, they took a couple of photos of me and then they went to take a selfie. I was going to offer to take a photo for them, but they invited me to join them in the shot and emailed me the photo later that afternoon. Fortress done.

I went and had my traditional sulphur bath and then headed across the road to the wine shop and did a free wine tasting with an enthusiastic sales assistant from Belarus who was eager to let me taste everything she had open. I said I liked reds, so we started on reds, then I had a shot of chacha, which is grape vodka and had a strength of 55%. I was then persuaded to try the white wines too.  I didn’t take a lot of persuading, it has to be said!

In order to try and soak up some of the alcohol, I tried a khachapuri, which is the traditional cheese pie they made here. Puff pastry filled with a salty cheese, but not plastic string type which I was unfortunate enough to try later. However, the khachapuri was actually really nice. They charge quite a lot for them in restaurants, but I’d noticed a bakery on my way to the baths, so I called in there and got a fresh one and ate it while I was walking, it was still warm. I did really like it.

And finally, was I going to be able to fit in the funicular up to the top of Mount Mtatsminda today or not? It was starting to get dark, I didn’t know how late it ran. I didn’t need to worry. It only closes for 4 hours a day. Between 4am and 8am. And it was really close to my guesthouse, so I could walk there in 10 minutes. There’s a restaurant on the top of Mount Mtatsminda and the hill is home to Mtatsminda Park a fun fair with a ferris wheel and rollercoaster.  The TV Tower is also located at the top of the funicular. The TV Tower is covered in satellite dishes so it’s not one you can go up inside like in some places, however, it is all lit up in pink lights at night, so it looks very pretty.

I rode the funicular right to the top and I had a walk to the ferris wheel to start with.  It looked like was still going even though it was dark. The same transport card I used for the funicular was also the card I needed to use to go on the ferris wheel. No one else seemed to be interested in going on it and I did wonder if it was closed after all, but it wasn’t, so I got an enclosed carriage to myself and some lovely views of Tbilisi all lit up at night as I went round.  I could see the rollercoaster from the top of the wheel, unfortunately that definitely was closed at this time of night or I would have certainly given that a go.

After my ride on the ferris wheel, I headed back to the restaurant for a cocktail in the bar, took a seat on the terrace and had a cocktail. The cocktail I ordered was a peach martini made with a Georgian vodka which completely overpowered everything else. I didn’t have a second one. Even so, it was quite nice on the terrace overlooking the lights of Tbilisi. The only drawback was the locals are big smokers and even though it was outdoors, it was a smoky atmosphere on the terrace. As a non-smoker who has got used to everything in England now being smoke free, I find smoking antisocial and unpleasant. I just sat as far away from the smokers as I could and it didn’t bother me too much, I could enjoy my cocktail and the view.  It was a lovely evening at the top of the highest peak in the city.

The following day, I decided I didn’t want a further battle by attempting to take any more transport out of Tbilisi, so I opted to stay local.

I had a wander to Freedom Square and then into the old town. There were lots of statues in Tbilisi, I saw one of Tamada, the Georgian Toast Master and another of a man up a ladder lighting a lamp. It was very quiet this early in the morning, there was no one much around.

I continued my walk and found the Peace Bridge. Tbilisi’s Bridge of Peace spanning the Kura River is a wavy, bow shaped pedestrian bridge made of steel and glass and is one of the iconic features of the city. I crossed the bridge and took some photos and crossed back again into the old town.

I then went to the National Gallery which had a permanent exhibition of about 50 paintings. At least I wasn’t completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of artwork. The temporary exhibition only had about half that number of paintings. But I enjoy art galleries and so I found it quite interesting. I went to the National Museum too, that wasn’t very exciting. I concluded the Russians must have got all the good stuff to exhibit in Moscow and St Petersburg.

I headed back into the old town walked around where the Leaning Puppet Theatre Clock Tower of Tbilisi was, although unfortunately the museum was closed.

After my wanderings around the city, I decided now was the time I should probably have something to eat. I went in one place with interesting chandeliers made out of wine glasses and they had an extensive wine menu. I tried a couple of qvevri red wines, the first one was a bit feeble for my liking, so I had a glass of the stronger second one. It wasn’t exceptional, but it was okay.

The qvevri method is the traditional Georgian way of making wine, instead of oak barrels they use clay pots that they bury in the ground and they don’t add any sulphur or anything. I ended up getting quite a taste for the qvevri red wine, but it took a while to grow on me. Initially I didn’t think much to it.

This place also had rare Georgian cheeses and as I like my cheese I decided to give it a try. You should have seen what I got. This cheese that looked like silly string and tasted like salted plastic! They brought me a cheese that was like smoked Gouda, except I’d already told the waiter and I didn’t like smoked cheese and he said they’d bring me an alternative and they forgot! So I sent that back. The replacement was tasteless, and probably the best was a soft cheese quite like Brie except nowhere near as good. I wasn’t impressed. If this was a representation of the best the Georgian cheese industry has to offer, then after this sample, my conclusion would be that the rest of the cheeses they produce in Georgia must be absolutely revolting!

I wandered back to my guesthouse after my drink and horrible cheese meal and sat in the living room watching the Mentalist on telly that had been dubbed into Georgian. They only seemed to have one actor dubbing all the male characters from what I could tell, all the male voices in the programme were identical! The guesthouse owner brought me a glass of red wine and I had a drink.

All in all, I did enjoy Tbilisi, it was a very nice city. However, had I known when I arrived in Georgia what I knew when I left, I would have done things differently. I think the best way to organise my trip to Georgia would have been to base myself in Tbilisi, give myself a day or so in Tbilisi to enjoy the sights there and then to just do day trips from Tbilisi on organised tours. They’re not expensive, you get to see everything and you don’t have to battle with taxi drivers and other people trying to rip you off all the time.

But it had been an experience that I wouldn’t forget. I think maybe my expectations were too high, I wasn’t prepared for how little there was to do in reality and how difficult it would be to get around. My impression was it was a poor country still trying to find its way after all those years of Soviet occupation and it was still a long way off at that time.

There were a couple of highlights, Davit Gareja was very good, the Caucasus Mountains around Kazbegi are beautiful and I did generally enjoy Tbilisi. I do have some positives to look back on. I can’t see me rushing back, but I never say never and, if I take my own advice, I believe any return visit will be infinitely more successful.

I travelled to Georgia during the first half of October 2016.

I stayed at Guest House Formula 1 in Tbilisi with breakfast included.

Narikala Fortress is at the top of Narikala Hill. You can get to the top of Narikala Hill in a modern cable car which is part of the Tbilisi public transport system. You need a public transport card to ride in the cable car which is available from any transport station in the city.

Narikala Fortress is free to walk around.

Mtatsminda Hill is accessed by the steep inclined funicular. A Mtatsminda Park card is needed for the funicular. This is a different card to the Tbilisi public transport pass card. The Mtatsminda Park card is also needed to go on any of the rides at Mtatsminda Park 

I tried qvevri red wine at G Vino in the heart of Tbilisi Old Town. They have an extensive wine menu. I don’t recommend the cheese!

Tbilisi is located approximately a three and a half hour drive from Kutaisi. Collective minibuses run frequently between the two cities.

I flew to Georgia on a Wizz Air flight to Kutaisi from Budapest, Hungary. This was a cheaper alternative to flying to the capital, Tbilisi.

I flew to Budapest from Manchester Airport with Jet2.

Read about my other experiences in Georgia.
Traditional Sulphur Bath Experience
Davit Gareja Cliff Monastery Complex
Into the Caucasus Mountains – Kazbegi Region

If you ever are in Georgia – take care! Read about my encounter with the Georgian police when I was unlucky enough to be the victim of a pickpocket.
Reporting a Theft – A Cautionary Tale

I was determined I was going to go to a traditional sulphur bath while I was in Tbilisi.  I didn’t want to miss out on this genuine experience because it’s one of the things that Tbilisi is renowned for.  Abanotubani  is the ancient district of the city where the sulphur baths are located, the discovery of the hot springs was apparently the reason for building a city in this location.

I’d heard the sulphur baths were quite an experience.  I was planning on having a massage, but I’d heard they were not exactly gentle and with my poor, painful shin, a remnant from the injury I suffered on the river crossing in the Juta Valley in the mountains the previous day, I didn’t know that I could take it.

I’d been wandering around the sulphur baths earlier and when I passed one, they called me in and invited me to look at a private room which was £10 an hour.  They charged another £7 for a massage.  I looked in another place where they weren’t so friendly and charged twice the price, so I went back to King Erekle’s Bath where they’d showed me round and I got a private room for an hour and also booked a massage.  I was asked if I wanted a man or a woman to massage me.  What kind of service were they offering here?  I’ve had male massage therapists before, but that’s been in proper spas, not these bathhouses where the masseuse rubs you down with an exfoliating mitt and then washes you with soap and you can’t wear your bikini.  I certainly didn’t want a bloke doing that!  So I asked for a woman.  They told me 15 minutes and the masseuse would be there (sorry I can’t call her a massage therapist), meantime I should have a shower and a soak in the sulphur bath.

You could smell the sulphur, it is supposed to be very good for your skin.  The water is very hot!  It’s like when you run a bath and it’s slightly too hot, but you don’t want to put cold water in and cool it down too much so you think, it will soon cool down and put up with it for a few minutes.  Except this water never gets cooler and you feel like a boiled lobster!  I could only manage a few minutes at a time and then I would get out and have a shower with cold water.  Even the cold water wasn’t freezing cold, but it was cool.

The masseuse arrived, pretty well what I expected, a very large woman in her 60s wearing a black strapless dress and carrying a bucket.  She took the stuff out of her bucket and told me to get in the hot sulphur bath and she had a shower.  Thankfully, she kept her dress on.  Then she got me to lay on the marble slab and got the bucket, filled it with the hot water from the sulphur bath and threw it over me.  She started with the exfoliating mitt and then threw more hot water over me, did the same on my back and then she started washing me with soap.  There was so much soap that when I turned over I slid down the marble slab, but there was a bit of a wall at the end which was useful to stop me sliding off completely.

She massaged my back and my legs a bit, the pressure was okay, not as hard as I thought it might be.  Certainly not like the massage I had in Singapore where I thought I was going to die!

Then came the moment for her to throw buckets of hot water from the bath over me again to get rid of all the soap.  She asked me to sit up, I’d read about this, this was where she was about to tip a whole bucket of water over my head.  Which she did.  What I didn’t expect was her to then to start to wash my hair.   And if my lugholes were dirty, they certainly weren’t by the time she’d finished.  Another couple of buckets of water over my head and then she did a second shampoo.  And then she tipped a final couple of buckets of hot sulphuric water over my head.  I thought I’d probably end up going home with green hair.  After this holiday, that would absolutely not have surprised me.  Actually though, that night my hair felt lovely, it was really soft.  And as an added bonus, it didn’t turn green.

I was pleased I went to the sulphur baths.  It was good to soak in the boiling sulphuric water.  As a grown woman, I shouldn’t really be wanting someone else to give me a wash, but it’s all part of the Abanotubani ritual.  The baths certainly weren’t fancy, but it felt more a more genuine experience that way.  This was an ancient tradition of Tbilisi.

However, one word of warning.  I thought I might go back to the sulphur baths on another day, but when I did go back, they were full.  People are very nice to you when they’re not busy and are trying to get customers in, but when they don’t have space, they’re not only not interested, they’re downright rude.   That was certainly my experience on my return to King Erekle’s Bath for a possible second bath.

I did try a more traditional spa experience near Telavi in the Kakheti region in Eastern Georgia.

I’d booked to go to a winery near Telavi which also had a wine spa, so I booked some treatments as well as a wine tour and wine tasting.  The wine tour lasted 10 minutes and consisted of the hotel manager, who was wearing jeans and a hoodie, showing me the barrels and tanks and clay pots.

At least my tasting of 7 wines, followed by a glass of my favourite took some time, accompanied by bread, cheese and walnut slices in grapes. I’d never had walnut slices in grapes before, but they were delicious.  And I tasted the first decent qvevri white wine I’d had in Georgia, however, the qvevri red was the best and I had a second glass of that.  This place was expensive and got rave reviews, and while it was okay, it wasn’t very grand by European standards.

When it got to time for my massage, I had to go and find the manager to ask him where I needed to go instead of someone coming to get me and they were hardly swamped, there was me and a party of four eating lunch!

I’d booked a full body and head massage with a wine bath, followed by a reflexology massage.  The wine bath was hot water in a stainless steel bath with red wine added to it!  I soaked in it for 10 minutes.

The massage was nice, but then I wanted my reflexology massage and was told I’d had it and it had been combined.  I said I hadn’t had the full amount of time I was supposed to be paying for and I knew what a reflexology massage was too, so I got another half hour, but after having a row with the manager about it, I was hardly relaxed.  It was expensive too, but it was yet another example of an inferior establishment in Georgia trying to take advantage of “rich” Western tourists.

Comparing the experience I’d had in Tbilisi to the one in Telavi, I would say, definitely do the traditional sulphur baths in Tbilisi.  I have been to a lot of spas around the world and the one in Telavi was not in my Top 10, although soaking in a bath of red wine was a new experience for me!  It wasn’t worth the journey to Telavi to do that though and the massage was certainly nothing special.  I will say that the lunch was quite nice and the wines were good quality.  But again, it wasn’t worth going to Telavi for.

However, I did enjoy my sulphur bath and massage in Tbilisi.  It was a genuine Georgian experience.  I was in a traditional sulphur bath house by the river in the Atanubani District of the capital and I would recommend trying it out if you’re in Tbilisi.  It is one of the things that you should experience here.  Just hope you turn up at a quiet time when the staff are trying to draw customers in and then you won’t get the rude attitude I got when they were busier. It would be a shame if that put you off.

In case you’re wondering if Telavi itself is worth visiting, whilst in Telavi I also went to a small winery and a palace.

The lady who ran the guesthouse in Telavi, which was a comfortable guesthouse with a decent breakfast, told me I’d need a day to look around the town and said she had a driver who could take me round for some extortionate price. I’d had enough of being taken advantage of because everyone thought I was a rich Westerner, so I politely declined and walked into the town on my own.  And there was no way you needed a day to look round there.  I got a smelly, broken down taxi (which are generally the only kind available in Georgia) to take me to the winery and palace.

I was told I should have a wine tour even if I’d been to other wineries, because then you get to see the qvevri method of wine making.  The qvevri method is the traditional Georgian way of making wine, instead of oak barrels they use clay pots and they don’t add any sulphur or anything.  Except there’s nothing really to see and they don’t tell you much either.  The only thing I learned was that these clay pots they ferment the wine in are buried underground.  I was shown around the tiny museum and saw the oak barrels and the clay pots in the ground.  The wine was fermenting at that time.  They only made white qvevri wine at this winery, which is an amber colour and tastes like sherry.  It wasn’t my favourite.  I tried 3 wines that were made French style.  They were okay, none of them blew me away.

I then went next door to the Chavchavadze Palace, which wasn’t what I’d call a palace.  It actually looked like a plantation house you’d find in the American Deep South or the Caribbean.  It was the home of Georgian nobleman, diplomat and poet, Alexandre Chavchavadze and the house is now a museum with some original furniture.  I looked around the half dozen rooms of the house that you can see, had a walk around the very pleasant and quiet grounds and ended up in the bar, sampling more wine.  I was in the wine region, so it seemed the logical thing to do.

After the rave reviews from Lonely Planet about the palace, I was expecting more.  It was pleasant enough, but it was hardly worth the journey out to Eastern Georgia.  So I wouldn’t particularly recommend visiting Telavi and its environs if you come to Georgia.

It had been my experience in general, every tourist attraction in Georgia featured in the guidebook was overhyped.  I suppose they need to be, otherwise no one would come here! I sound like a right whinger, don’t I?  It had just been really frustrating battling to try and get anywhere and not get ripped off.

When I went back to Tbilisi in a shared taxi the next day, for once the taxi was fairly tidy and the driver wasn’t a total maniac.  I was first to the taxi so I grabbed the front seat, so I wasn’t cramped in the back.  This bloke came along about 20 minutes later and opened the front door and tried to get me to sit in the back because he wanted to sit in the front.  I refused to move.  I was not going to sit for an hour and a half in the middle on the back seat because he wanted the front seat.  That’s what I mean about everything being a battle.  It was very stressful.  But I was going back to Tbilisi which was somewhere I was starting to enjoy and I was certainly confident finding my way around there now.

I travelled to Georgia during the first half of October 2016.

I had my sulphur bath and massage at King Erekle’s Baths in the Abanotubani District of Tblisi.

Telavi is located in the Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia, approximately 2 hours from Tbilisi.  Collective taxis and minibuses travel between the two destinations regularly.

I had my spa treatments and wine tasting at Schuchmann Wines winery, hotel, restaurant and spa.  Schuchmann Wines is a short taxi ride away from the centre of Telavi.

You can also taste wine and tour the historic Chavchavadze Palace at the Tsinandali Estate located a 15 minute taxi ride from central Telavi.

I stayed at Marinella Guesthouse in Telavi with breakfast included.

I flew to Georgia on a Wizz Air flight to Kutaisi from Budapest, Hungary. This was a cheaper alternative to flying to the capital, Tbilisi.

I flew to Budapest from Manchester Airport with Jet2.

Read about my other experiences in Georgia.
The Hilltops of Tbilisi
Davit Gareja Cliff Monastery Complex
Into the Caucasus Mountains – Kazbegi Region

If you ever are in Georgia – take care! Read about my encounter with the Georgian police when I was unlucky enough to be the victim of a pickpocket.
Reporting a Theft – A Cautionary Tale

Read about my spa experience in Austria
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa

Read about another wine tasting experience I had in Liechtenstein
Wine Tasting in the Prince’s Cellar