Category: Georgia

For the whole time we were in Georgia, we stayed in Tbilisi and took day trips from there to explore the countryside. I’ve gone through all our day trips, so now it’s time to cover what we did while we were in the capital!

On the first day after Alan and I arrived from Armenia, we took a cooking class. It was with Georgian Flavors, who I had found online from recommendations on blogs. They noted that she was good at adapting for vegetarians as well which was a big selling point for me. It was a private class, so just Alan and I in her home.

It was a really fun experience. We made vegetables with walnut paste, which is a classic Georgian dish, and of course, the classic Georgian cheese bread! All of the food was delicious, and it was nice to get a pretty authentic look at Georgian culture immediately after we got there. Irma told us all about the culinary traditions of Georgia, and we also had great conversations about the general culture and history of Georgia.

The next day, Colin had arrived and we did a sort of self-directed walking tour of the city. In total, I had about three full days in Tbilisi, so I did get a pretty good sense of the city.

I quite liked Tbilisi, I think it has an interesting mix of old and new and it feels cool. Georgia went from very off the radar to a big tourist destination, and with that came more remote workers, more expats, more people who want to be in Tbilisi. It felt very cosmopolitan.

Tbilisi, like Yerevan, also has a large metal woman on a hill. We took a gondola up to the top to go see her and then walked back down. I would definitely recommend doing this on a clear day, because the views of the city were amazing!

We also went to the National Museum. There were a lot of animals that are native to Georgia featured, and I thought the natural history portion was pretty solid.

At the top, there’s a hallway that describes the history between Georgia and Russia, which was interesting but could have used a little more broad context in my opinion. While we were there, we saw multiple protests about Russia and the fact that their government seemed to be supporting Putin. We had local guides express negative opinions toward the country of Russia and the number of Russians living in Georgia. I think I have a decent sense of it all from my own knowledge of USSR history and other tours across the week, but I do think the museum itself could have more of that information accessible for someone who is starting with the basics.

One of the other interesting cultural experiences we had in Georgia was trying chacha. Chacha is a local brandy, similar to vodka or grappa, and it is made from the grape residue that’s left over from making wine. Georgia really is out here inventing all the new ways to drink liquor!

We went to a chacha bar and asked the guy for a tasting. It was sort of half bar, half liquor store, and he was clearly an expert. We tried three different types between us so we could each take a sip of each kind. It was very strong. I had the flavored one, which I was happy about because it went down a lot smoother than the original!

We also visited the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi. Every time we found ourselves at a church in Georgia or Armenia, it was very well attended. This one seemed to be having some sort of confirmation or performance for children or something – there were tons of families there and the kids seemed to be in fancier outfits.

During our last night in Tbilisi, Colin was heading to the airport and it was just Alan and I again. We started talking about how we were both missing the chance to see Wicked: For Good with our friends at home, so we decided to see if it was available anywhere in Tbilisi in English. We found an English-language screening at the theater in the mall near the apartment we were renting and so we headed to the movies! I haven’t gone to the movies when I’m abroad very often, but it was kind of a great way to finish out our trip. Although I do wish the movie hadn’t been in 3D since it made the sets look a bit fuzzier than I remembered in Part 1.

I had an amazing time in Georgia! I feel like I saw a lot, but I would go back to explore more of the western part of the city and just spend more time there. I found the culture very warm and the food and wine there was great. I will definitely be back to the Caucasus region to visit Azerbaijan, and I would happily stop back in Tbilisi at that point.

For our last day trip out of Tbilisi, we headed east into wine country! One of Georgia’s claims to fame is that it is the birthplace of wine. Archeologists have found evidence of grape cultivation and wine-making pottery as early as 8,000 BCE in Georgia. There are also still unique wine-making practices in the region. While we also got to see that a bit in Armenia, I was excited about a tour that was focused on Georgian wine-making tradition.

We went with a tour company called Eat This! Tours, and they were great. It was meant to be a small group tour, but it ended up just being the three of us, so we had a private experience at the various wineries. We started at a larger family-owned winery and got a tour of their vineyard.

So what does make the Georgian tradition unique? (And not 100% unique, to be clear, as we saw the same traditions in Armenia. Maybe I should rephrase to the Caucasus tradition.) They age their wine in ceramics instead of wooden barrels, and then those ceramic jars are buried underground for the aging process. It looks like this:

Once we had learned about the process, we had an elaborate lunch with wine and food pairings. Georgia definitely takes their food and wine seriously. Everything was delicious!

From there, we headed to Sighnaghi, which is one of the most well-known towns in the region. It was beautiful – I can see why it’s risen in popularity for the tourists coming to the Kakheti region for wine tasting. It has a cool set of city walls that were used to fortify it in the 18th century.

We had a short tour of the town before our next wine tasting!

We headed to our second wine tasting, which was at much smaller winery. It’s also family owned but it’s on a much smaller scale than the first place where we had lunch. It was nice to get a sense of the wine industry in Georgia. Not just the fancier ones that cater more to tourists, but also the places that are a little more off the beaten path. The wine was delicious!

Our last stop was a family home that makes their own artisan wines! They cooked an amazing dinner for us and showed us their own personal vineyard and wine-making set up.

All in all, it was a great day! Georgia’s food and wine and hospitality are excellent, and this was such a fun way to experience it. I think anyone who visits should do some sort of food and/or wine tour during their time in Georgia. I’ll have one more post from Georgia to summarize our time in Tbilisi, and then it will be on to the next destination.

The next day, we hired a driver and headed east from Tbilisi! I had read about a service called GoTrip, which worked so well. It functions as a long distance taxi service, and gives you a flat rate for a specified route. You can match with people in various languages as well which was helpful to have a driver that we could talk to. The route I picked started at the Uplistsikhe archeological site.

The site is from around 1000 – 2000 BCE, and is a town carved out of the rock. It was really cool, and we got there pretty early so we had it practically to ourselves. The one negative is that there isn’t a ton of information about it on site, so most of what I know about it I’ve gotten from Wikipedia. Still, it was interesting to climb over the rocks and explore the various structures.

Fun fact, when we first bought our tickets, the woman at the counter asked us if we wanted to see the wine cellar. It was a little extra, but it was interesting, she said. So we paid a few extra dollars and went on our way. When we got to the part that said wine cellar, we learned that what we had actually paid for was a wine tasting – at about 10:30 am! It was fun to try a couple different wines, but it was also quite a bit earlier than any of us had planned on drinking that day.

Once we had our glasses of wine, we got back on the road toward Gori. Basically the only thing that Gori is known for is being the birthplace of Stalin. There are statues of him, the house where he was born, a park named after him, and a museum that talks about his life.

As you know, I am fascinated by propaganda, so I had a great time at the Stalin museum. Which, by the way, gives an unexpectedly rosy view of his reign. I would say the general narrative is that he was a part of the Russian Revolution alongside Lenin, then he defeated the Nazis, and then he died. Here’s a photo of him signing a new law! A law that does what, you ask? Don’t worry about that at all!!! He got rid of Nazis!!! Did we mention that part???

There is a small annex in the ground floor that mentions some of the death and prison camps and exile to Siberia, but you have to go looking for it. The majority of the museum is beautiful oil paintings and Central Asian carpets with his face on them and gifts that were given to him from various other world leaders. It was very interesting to see the way they presented this period of history.

Once we were done at the museum, we headed to the Memorial of Georgian War Heroes. My friends were deeply unprepared for the scale of this monument as we rounded the corner. The statues were super cool, especially with their location at the base of the Gori Fortress.

It took us a while to find lunch in Gori. There weren’t a lot of options and most of them seemed to be closed. But we eventually found a place to eat more of those delicious Georgian dumplings, and then it was off to our last stop of the day before we headed back: Borjomi!

Borjomi is a resort town known for its mineral water. There’s a brand of bottled water called Borjomi, although I certainly hope its water tastes better than what we tried out of the spring. Allegedly, it has some sort of healing qualities, although I would have to be pretty sick to want to drink its hot and sulfurous stream again.

The park was pretty nice, and we walked along for a while until we were ready to go back to Tbilisi. During our walk, we found another probably-haunted Soviet amusement park, which is still one of my favorite aspects of this region.

Borjomi was unlike anywhere else we went in Georgia, but it was also pretty small and didn’t have much to do. There is a Romanov palace near by but it’s now on private property and not accessible to the public, which is a big bummer. Maybe in the summer more of the park would be open, but that also seemed like it was more designed for children. There might have been more to do on the other side of the river in town, but it didn’t seem worth having our driver take us back into town to wander around when we could just go back to the city. It was beautiful, though, and it wasn’t that far from Gori, so definitely worth the visit as a part of this day trip.

It was a really interesting day out of Tbilisi. I think this is the most “off the beaten path” we managed to get in Georgia – Tbilisi is very popular, and the two other day trips we chose are the two top choices for most tourists. And with good reason, I loved Kazbegi and I loved the wine tasting tour. But it was also nice to get a different side of the country, both literally and metaphorically. Also, if you’re like me and you’re interested in propaganda, the Stalin Museum is top tier. 10/10 would recommend.

The image that I’ve always had of Georgia is of one specific landmark – the Gergeti Trinity Church in the Kazbegi region. The photo of it on a hilltop, surrounded by snowcapped mountains, is perhaps the most iconic image of the country, and it was a top priority to see it while we were here. I scheduled it for our first full day out of the city so that we had some flexibility just in case there was weather up in the mountains.

We started at the Zhinvali Water Reservoir and the Ananuri Fortress. The reservoir is man made, created from a nearby dam. Ananuri sits on the water’s edge and has beautiful views of the valley.

Ananuri was built in the 13th century and is on the tentative list for UNESCO status. It’s famous for surviving a siege. It has secret tunnels that allowed the inhabitants to continue to get food and water. The name comes from a woman named Ana from the town of Nuri, who was captured by the enemy and tortured in an attempt to reveal the entrance to the tunnels, but she chose to die rather than betray her people.

After we had explored the fortress, we continued north to our next stop, which was a honey tasting! I’ve done one or two honey tastings before, and I’m always amazed at how different the honey tastes based on which types of plants the bees are pollinating.

As we continued north, the landscapes became more stunning! We stopped for lunch and then made our way to Stepantsminda, which is the closest town to the Gergeti Trinity Church.

We even had to switch from the small bus to cars that had 4×4 enabled to get up to the church! Thankfully, we were doing this all on dry roads. There was snow on the tops of some of the nearby mountains, and we saw a few patches of snow near the road, but our weather was perfect.

Once we were done at the church, we had one more stop on the way back to Tbilisi! And outside of Gergeti, this was the one I was the most excited for.

Welcome to the Russia – Georgia Friendship Monument! Our guide put the “friendship” part in very heavy quotes. Anyone who knows me should know that this is exactly the sort of Soviet-style pseudo propaganda I’m looking for when I travel. This particular monument was created to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Georgievsk, which was signed in 1783 between the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Georgia. By 1983, Georgia had been subsumed by the (soon to be defunct) USSR, and the narrative on the monument reflects that.

Our guide went through all the symbols with us, and while I don’t remember all of them, the gist is that Russian folklore and national symbols are to the right and Georgian folklore and national symbols are to the left. The center depicts a maternal Russia holding Georgia, her child, on her lap, and has an inscription in both Georgian and Russian. The design of it is absolutely stunning. I loved the vivid colors of the monument, even if its message is quite patronizing toward Georgia. It was interesting seeing the Russian perspective toward Georgia, especially since the majority of our trip was giving us the other side of the story.

And with that, it was back to Tbilisi! Heading up to Kazbegi was amazing. I would love to spend more time in the Caucasus Mountains. This was our only day trip into the mountains, because I wasn’t certain if it would be snowy or bad weather; that said, I think the hiking and trekking in the summer and fall are some of the best of what Georgia has to offer, and I would love to spend more time in the region. But we did have a few more fascinating stops that were included in our itinerary. More on that next time.