Midnight Flight to Georgia
British Airways are stopping their flights to Tbilisi at the end of March and this prompted me to take a quick trip to Georgia to discover Tbilisi and Batumi, and take the train between the two cities. One advantage of Georgia is that it is visa free for EU country passport holders.
The outbound flight could not have been more socially unacceptable in terms of timing, arriving at 04.30 which meant having to book a hotel room for the night before so I could check in and immediately crash out! One advantage of arriving at 04.30 was zero traffic on the roads so the journey from the airport to the hotel was very swift. I was staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Tbilisi but with hindsight I should have stayed more centrally in one of the many new boutique hotels that are springing up in the Caucuses.
My first day in Georgia was spent exploring the birthplace of Stalin in Gori about 50 kms from Tbilisi. I arranged a private tour with a driver and guide to allow me to maximise my time. It is possible to get to Gori by train from Tbilisi and if I go back I would definitely do this as the station in Gori was close to the town and it was walkable to the Stalin Museum. The museum grounds contain the house that Stalin was born in and also his private railway carriage, which had an ensuite bathroom! Inside the museum not all displays have information in English but having a guide I was shown the highlights and you can conveniently arrange an English speaking guide at the museum.
After exploring the museum, the next destination was Gori Castle (Goris Tsikhe) which sits at the heart of the city on top of a hill. The castle itself has nothing to see apart from its walls but the view is great with snow capped mountains to the north and views of the two rivers that meet in Gori.
Leaving Gori, our next destination was lunch and an exploration of Mtskheta, the old capital of Georgia some 20 kilometres outside Tbilisi, which is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site. Lunch was at a traditional Georgian Restaurant with meat filled dumplings, khinkali (like dim sum) and the lovely Khachapuri cheese bread washed down with the local Georgian sparkling water Borjomi.
After lunch we explored the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral which is known as the burial place of Christ’s mantle. The current cathedral dates from the 11th century and has a number of recently restored icons and frescoes. This is a working cathedral and is the seat of the archbishop of Mtskheta and Tbilisi. There were many priests in the church and some were having small services at various points around the cathedral. Our next stop was the hilltop Jvari Monastery, built between 590 and 605, which is a few kilometers outside of Mtskheta with superb views of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers which meet below the monastery and again a backdrop of snowcapped mountains.
Mtskheta is accessible by train from Tblisi or by the local buses called Marshrutkas. Once you are in the city you can explore many sites on foot but you would need to hire a taxi to get to the hilltop Jvari Monastery.
After a successful day of sightseeing I headed back to my hotel and had an early night as I was shattered and had to be up early the following morning to head to Batumi.
An early Saturday morning breakfast saw me in a taxi en route to the station at 07.45 and my train left at 08.00 and the station is at least 20 minutes away! My booked taxi for 07.20 did not arrive and I was getting into a panic as the train only runs once a day! A very fast journey to the station saw me catch the train by the skin of my teeth as the train was a few minutes delayed. What also helped was the fact that the day before I had done a recce of the station to know where I would need to go…. surprisingly I was not a boy scout but I am always prepared!
My ticket for the train to Batumi was an e-ticket that Railbookers can book and issue. As this was the first booking we had made and I was the guinea pig to try it out I was in second class as the booking system we used is not very clear as to what was being booked, now we know how to book both first and second class seats. I would recommend travelling first class as the seats were in a 2 + 2 configuration whereas in second class it was 2 + 3 so rather cramped. There are two options to travel between Tbilisi and Batumi by train in the shape of one daytime and one overnight train each way. I had chosen to do the daytime both ways and on the outbound journey this was a good choice as the journey is very scenic especially when passing through the mountains separating East and West Georgia but on the way back the train was at 18.00 and it was dark for most of the journey and the train was full in second class so that journey was not the best. One downside of travelling by train in the former Soviet Union is smoking which is banned in the train seats but not in the connection between carriages so each time the door opened a waft of smoke infiltrated the carriage.
On arrival at Makhinjauri, the station for Batumi which is located 5 kilometres out of the city, I took a taxi to my hotel, the recently opened Sheraton Batumi which ticked all the right boxes in terms of location, comfort, service and facilities. I was lucky with the weather for my seaside stay with temperatures in the high teens and clear blue sky making for very pleasant strolls along the seaside promenade, a popular pastime with visitor and locals alike. I ate in the hotel to sample the quality of the restaurant and was very impressed with the menu being a mixture of Georgian, Turkish and International fare washed down with a lovely glass of Georgian Red.
On the Sunday I took another stroll around Batumi and checked out the port where you can take a hydrofoil to Sochi in Southern Russia, which look very comfortable. A new rail line is being built at the moment to connect Batumi with Kars in Eastern Turkey and once this is opens, a great round trip could be made by rail and hydrofoil from Istanbul through Ankara to Kars and on to Batumi then taking the hydrofoil to Sochi and from there heading round to the Ukraine and back across to Turkey by ferry.
As mentioned I took the evening train back to Tbilisi which was very much a non event as it was dark and busy but comfortable enough.
On my final morning I met a local contact and was given a brief tour of Tbilisi taking in the old city and the main drag Rustaveli as well as the Narikala fortress with great views over the city. What I missed out on due to lack of time was a trip to the Sulphur baths and a massage and the three recommended museums; Tbilisi Museum, National Museum and the Ethnographic Museum.
All in all, this was a great long weekend in Georgia and I would definitely return to spend more time and perhaps take the comfortable looking overnight train that links Tbilisi with Baku in Azerbaijan, which I saw in the station.