Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Has anyone been to Georgia (the country)?

32 replies

WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 13:12

Posting for hopefully more traffic than the travel forum...

DH has OK’d my taking DS(17 in May) away for a few days next summer. I’m thinking 4 or 5 nights and want somewhere really quite different. DS immediately volunteered Tibet or Borneo Grin but both are too far/impractical for a short trip.

Back in the 80s I spent time travelling around the former Yugoslavia when it was still relatively difficult to do so. I’m wanting that sort of feel - away from traditional tourist places but safe enough that DH won’t spend the time not sleeping for worrying about us!

At the moment I’m leaning towards Tblisi, Georgia because it seems to be quite a nice little city and it has several interesting places to go to as day trips. Plus I love Georgian food!

Possibly a bit of a long shot, but has anyone ever been?

OP posts:
marmaladecats · 31/10/2018 13:15

I have. It’s beautiful, friendly people, great food. You can do overnight trips to mount kazbegi and other places. Wonderful country.

Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 15:10

Thanks, marmaladecats ! The more I read about it, the more it looks and sounds fantastic!

OP posts:
DailyFailAreTwats · 31/10/2018 15:13

Yes and it's fab. Great city, food, people, scenery and the wine is fab! Highly recommended! As is the polyphonic singing in the churches... amazing!

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Holidays
ronswansonstache · 31/10/2018 15:32

I believe you can only fly direct from the UK to Kutaisi in the east. If you book far enough in advance you can get super cheap fares from Luton. There are a couple of good locations/ attractions from that part of the country - Akhaltsikhe has a beautiful castle/ fortress which is worth a visit and south from there you can visit the Vardzia cave dwellings.

The Stalin museum in Gori is interesting. It mostly focuses on his glorious soviet career rather than any of the bad stuff! Make sure you try the semi-sweet red wine if you have a chance.

Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 15:46

Excellent! I can now tell DH that MN highly recommends it. Grin

Am very excited!

OP posts:
Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 15:51

ronswansontache I’m flying from Scotland which definitely means no direct flights but fortunately means a few options to Tblisi, though they all seem to land in the middle of the night. Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 16:03

But wow! Just looked at Kutaisi flights and see what you mean about cheap!

OP posts:
Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 16:14

Oh for goodness sake, ron you are not my friend! Am now googling Kutaisi and the surrounding area and oh my! Might need longer and possibly fly into Kutaisi and out of Tblisi or vice versa.

OK, will stop spamming my thread now. Grin

OP posts:
ronswansonstache · 31/10/2018 16:33

Hah! There's loads to do round that area Hope you have a lovely trip!

Hairytangerine · 31/10/2018 16:34

Where even is it?

Satsumaeater · 31/10/2018 16:51

Caucausus. How do you get by language wise there? Does anyone speak English or other western languages? Michael Portillo went there on one of his Great Railway Journeys but of course he'd only meet the people with great English! It did look amazing.

The other place he went which is now on my visit list was Lvov in Ukraine.

YOusignup · 31/10/2018 16:57

Yes! It's near my neck of the woods. Not your typical teen holiday destination, but cool and lovely.

thanksamillion · 31/10/2018 17:00

There was another documentry with Lev (can't remember his surname). Well worth a watch and it looked fantastic.

Dowser · 31/10/2018 17:00

My Russian therapist was there for a month in September as Tenerife was too hot

All he told me was it’s a very poor country
His son lives in Latvia and he had a month there first. Georgia even poorer than Latvia he said

BlackLambAndGreyFalcon · 31/10/2018 17:02

Yes. We loved it there: the food, the wine, the history, the people and the churches and the stunning scenery. I haven't been back since 2005 so I don't know if this is still relevant but there was all road signs, tourist information, building signs etc were 90% in Georgian only and 10% Georgian/russian dual signage. Georgian is a beautiful language to look at, but absolutely nothing like any western language. We didn't find anyone who spoke English, but as we speak Russian it wasn't too much of an issue for us. This may have changed in 13 years (especially since wizz air!) but just to make you aware of potential language difficulties.

Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 17:29

BlackLamb Fortunately I’ve been to many places (a long time ago!) where no English was spoken so language difficulties don’t phase me in the slightest. Grin Am just trying to work out whether signs tend to be both in the Georgian alphabet and Latin or just Georgian- went to Belgrade many moons ago where the street signs were in Cyrillic but the city map from the tourist office was in the Roman alphabet. Cue me madly memorising Cyrillic in the youth hostel that night! Don’t ever want to be caught out like that again. Grin

OP posts:
ACavalo · 31/10/2018 17:33

Georgians use Kartuli script, which is beautiful, but you'll also see Roman and Cyrillic. Fabulous friendly place with great food!

BigGreenOlives · 31/10/2018 17:36

Two different sets of friends went this summer and both really enjoyed it. I’ve seen some photos & it looks stunning. One set flew via Germany as the flights suited them better.

hellojim · 31/10/2018 17:37

I've a feeling that Tbilisi is the new cool place to go clubbing...or did I imagine that?

Urbanbeetler · 31/10/2018 18:14

I read something about the clubbing thing too. Perhaps it is worth going before it becomes too clubby!

BlackLambAndGreyFalcon · 31/10/2018 18:37

When I was there 13 years ago (so obviously might have changed) signage was mostly in Georgian only. We had a map which helpfully (thank you lonely planet!) had the road names in transliterated Roman letters only! Cue us fresh off the bus walking around aimlessly until we found one of the few road signs which was in Russian as well and then we could work out where we were on the map in relation to where we wanted to get to! This was obviously before smartphones/GPS was a thing and also pre-2008 so there may be less Russian around now.

Original poster
WickedGoodDoge · 31/10/2018 19:12

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! That’s just like Belgrade. I’d assumed tourist info would have a map in Cyrillic because then I’d be able to match up Cyrillic to Cyrillic without being able to read it, but Latin to Cyrillic was hopeless. All I had was a German to Serbo-Croat mini translator book so I was standing at street corners, trying to hold the map and keep the book open to the alphabet page while staring at random street signs. Grin Grin Grin

OP posts:
marmaladecats · 31/10/2018 20:12

Mmmm I’m still remembering the hot cheese bread from the street called katchapuri. May have to visit again!

anzu66 · 31/10/2018 22:42

I've never actually made a link to another website on Mumsnet, so hope this works:

A fairly recent thread on Egullet (a site about food and cooking) about traveling and eating in Georgia:
forums.egullet.org/topic/157344-traveling-in-georgia-2018/

It really makes me want to go there!

Sarcelle · 31/10/2018 22:46

Joanna Lumley raved about it on her recent tv prog. I went to the try out for her tour she is doing currently and she mentioned Georgia as one of the best places she has visited.