Georgia 🇬🇪 Trip Report

[stankpa]

A few of you asked for a Georgia trip report, and now that BA start to fly directly, there is even more reasons to go.

Being based in Edinburgh, and needing a few more points to get my BA Gold upgrade voucher, we decided to book a BA holiday to Istanbul with a stop over in London (and no intention of picking up our rental car in Istanbul 😉). We are yet to see if the risk pays off but we had an amazing break regardless.

We wre caught up in Heathrow flight cancellations, and after 4 hours at the airport, and two cancelled Edinburgh-Heathrow flights, we were sent home and rebooked on the first flights the following morning.

This meant that our overnight Sofitel booking was refunded and we ended up working from Galleries First before boarding out Istanbul flight.

Our flights to Istanbul arrived after midnight and we booked onwards flight to Tbilisi with Turkish airlines at 6.25am. I know the timing might not be for everyone but we travel a lot during the year and time is precious.

Tbilisi airport is small, so once we landed, the luggage arrived within 30mins and we were off to the hotel in Bolt (preferred to Uber in Georgia and many other Eastern European countries). The taxi driver was very chatty and fancied himself a tour guide while we just wanted him to leave us alone and get us to the hotel 😂.

We booked 4 nights at Paragraph Luxury Collection Hotel. Pre-arrival communication was good although I was disappointed that the hotel did not accept Nightly Upgrade Awards. I needn’t worry. On arrival, we were upgrade to the second best suite in the hotel and allowed early check- in which made our day after 2 nights of little sleep. Both, the living room and the bedroom had panoramic views of the city and great quality amenities.

As Bonvoy Platinum at the time (now Titanium), we got free breakfast and access to club lounge. Breakfast was great, buffet style with both international and Georgian breakfast selection. I loved little juice shots they served every day.

The executive lounge was empty most days with a single server and us (plus a couple of friends we ‘smuggled’ in on a number of days). Hot food was served form 6pm and it was a nice selection of mini bbq meat, maki rolls, fruit and sweets. 6 different Georgian wines were also available each day.

Daily wine tasting was arranged free of charge for all hotel guests with sommelier attending and telling stories about the wines available to taste.

Hotel rate included $50 daily credit, we had no idea until the last night when I decided to settle the hotel bill early due to early start the next morning. Having no idea what to do with it (as we already ate), we were promptly booked for a couple massage and additional facial for me which was free after the credit was applied. The spa was run by ESPA and was of a very high quality.

Now you know that there is a great hotel to stay in Tbilisi, it is worth covering what we did during our stay. We are big wine enthusiasts and that was our primary driver for the trip. We booked a driver for 2 days on https://gotrip.ge/ which I would highly recommend as you can see the languages spoken by your driver and detailed photos of the car. Georgian roads are not great so a comfortable transport mode is essential.

First day we spent in the city, visiting the friendship bridge, the crooked clock and having a lovely lunch at Otsy (probably the best meal we had in Tbilisi). The next day we travelled to Kakheti wine region and visited Chateau Buera on a beautiful lake Lopota (if we ever go back, I’d love to stay for couple of nights at their resort). Their wine cellar tour was great, though basic, their wines were nothing to write home about despite us choosing their signature wine tasting. We then travelled to Nekresi estate where we got to meet the wine maker and taste their first edition wines which was very special. We also had a great bbq lunch there.

Next day was all about more wine, with lunch and tasting and Chateau Mukhrani, hands down best wine we had in Georgia and private tasting was exceptional.
On the way back from Chateau Mukhrani, we stopped in Mtskheta (old capital of Georgia) for stunning views of the monasteries and visits to the oldest ones. The scenery was breathtaking and I would highly recommend it.

Final day in Tbilisi was all about leisurely walks, more wine, khinkali (famous Georgian dumplings) and a quick visit to the Georgian museum.

We had a great time in Tbilisi, weather was fantastic for mid-September (late 20s C) and we had even more to look forward to with our beach break in Batumi.

So how do you get from Tbilisi to Batumi I hear you say.

Well, Georgia has its first speed train which connects both cities. Tickets are available in second, first and business class (with business class being top). There are four trains a day during summer, and given they book out quickly, its advisable to book well ahead.
I only managed to get first class tickets but I found the seat very specious (no food or drink provided although it can be purchased) but WiFi did not work at all.

After 5 hours train journey (we slept for 3 hours of that) we arrived to Batumi ready for second part of our adventure.

Taxi drivers swarmed the train platform looking for business, we walked pass them and ordered Bolt again and for 20 GEL (£5.50) we were off to Sheraton which claims to be the top hotel in the city.

On arrival we were warmly greeting with ‚we’ve been waiting for you, you are ours highest ranking guest, once again we were given best available room with panoramic view of the beach and the sea and promptly taken to the room.

It is worth mentioning that the hotel is going through renovation which is not mentioned in the website, most suites are under refurbishment and are not available to book. The roof top lounge has also been moved to the downstairs restaurant which was a bit of a let down.

I wanted to love this hotel, but the service was inconsistent, staff tended to avoid looking at customers and it was difficult to draw anyone’s attention. During one of the lounge happy hours, we were approached by their operations manager who chatted to us, and instructed staff to look after going forward. This made things better for the rest of the stay but it shouldn’t have been needed.

The hotel rents access to a private club/pool the opposite street and all hotels guests have access. The pool is great and it was a lovely place to relax with a book on hand.

The food at the hotel was ok but plentiful, with buffet breakfast, sandwiches and fruit available in lounge during the day and hot food from 6pm every evening.

The hotel also had a great steakhouse restaurant on the roof top, which is still open, with panoramic views of the city. We had dinner there on our last night and made amazing memories.

Now… my fingers are tired from typing so I will finish here but happy to answer any individual questions.

If you’re thinking of visiting Georgia, do it!
It’s a fantastic country, full of history, great wine and lovely people.

I am off to plan my Peru – Ecuador – Galapagos trip which we are doing in November.

Thanks for reading 😊

[davefl]

Agree completely, amazing country and wine and people. Terrible roads, but interesting, I didn’t know about the train so thanks for the info.

Seconded for Gotrip.ge. Love the way you can choose model of car and driver – I booked a driver to pick me up from the Doubletree in Yerevan, Armenia at 8am and he drove me all the way to Tbilisi for about £140. Took about 10 hours but we stopped for lakes, churches, monasteries, sights and lunch/breaks.

Also yes to Bolt(and Wolt for food delivery) rather than Uber in lots of areas. Interestingly with no fanfare Bolt are in Manchester now, and cheaper than uber.

I didn’t do luxury hotels but the HIX in Tbilisi is in a great location, 10 mins walk from the old town through the park, and a couple of mins from the subway station. Tiblisi felt very safe at all hours of the day and night.

HIX sent a bottle of white wine to my room as a welcome gift because I was platinum. Never had that kind of welcome at an HIX before.

Lots of day trips from Tbilisi are possible. Mtskheta is one of the half day ones, bookable on Viator etc. Takes about an hour to actually get out of the centre of Tbilisi as the traffic is terrible and the driving is lunacy but it’s worth it.
I’d caution against the long single day trips to Sheki and such places as they are way too far to be comfortable and things don’t go to plan in that part of the world (I really thought I was going to die on that day trip). Do the overnight stay trips, they’re much more relaxing.

[stankpa]

Thanks @davefl, Yerevan and Armenia have been added to my travel bucket list. It was a shame we couldn’t combine it with Georgia but we simply didn’t have enough time. Would love to hear about your experiences.

The speed trains can be booked on TKT.GE which allows to pick seats (Georgian railways website doesn’t).

[davefl]

stankpa wrote:

Thanks @davefl, Yerevan and Armenia have been added to my travel bucket list. It was a shame we couldn’t combine it with Georgia but we simply didn’t have enough time. Would love to hear about your experiences.

The speed trains can be booked on TKT.GE which allows to pick seats (Georgian railways website doesn’t).

Cheers, posted some ramblings in the destination forum.

[stankpa]

Thank you @davefl. I really enjoyed reading your ‘ramblings’ 😂