Travelling to Tbilisi Part 1 (and our first disaster)
It’s been a while since I have written. Life took over I guess and a lot has happened. The summer has been and nearly gone, it seems.
On 13th July we flew to Tbilisi. I was a nervous wreck. We flew over with Aegean with a stop in Athens and flew back with Turkish with a stop in Istanbul. I am not going to lie, it wasn’t good. Not because of the airlines, but the flight times and the stop overs were just a nightmare. For anyone flying from the UK — yes Georgian Airways do a direct flight but the prospect of flying with them for 7 hours was worse. They are renowned for being a terrible airline which is why wen chose to do the stopovers with better airlines. We arrived at 4.30am having been awake all night. New Life had sent a driver to the airport to pick us up. Arrivals was crazy. Hundreds of taxi drivers with pieces of paper in the air, it took us about 20 minutes to find our guy. But be prepared, it is crazy and was not an easy feat to find our driver! It reminded us of Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.
I had booked a hotel on Booking. We researched where we might want to live next year when we were staying for three months and thought it might be a good idea to stay in that area (Vera/Vake) whilst we were there to get a feel . I therefore booked a hotel near Vera Park. It looked like it had a gorgeous view, had some really good reviews on TripAdvisor and Booking and was a good price.
Well, we arrived at 6am to a car park at a strip club, red flashing lights and surrounded by tall high rise blocks. The taxi driver didn’t speak English but he used Google translate to tell us that we were here! We could not see a hotel anywhere but on investigation, realised that up a fire escape, there was a silver plaque with the name of our hotel. It was the top floors of one of the apartment blocks. Needless to say, Rick and I decided that we wanted to find somewhere else to stay.
We used Google translate to tell him to get us out of here and on the way to anywhere/nowhere Rick rang the Holiday Inn (which is a 4 star hotel in Tbilisi) and asked them for a room, any room, whatever the price! We arrived and went to bed until 5pm. We learned the lesson that in Tbilisi it is best to not take a chance and book on recommendation only!
The restaurant that night however was incredible! I had read about Cafe Littera on a number of blogs and it was like something out of a movie. I will say no more except you have to go there, it is a must visit. They don’t have a website and you need to book through their Facebook page or phone. We also went to a restaurant called Bina 37 which is literally an old penthouse apartment converted into a restaurant and they make wine the traditional Georgian way on the terrace. You will hear alot about “Georgian wine the traditional way.” The Georgian people are really proud of this as it is said that this is the birth place of wine and wine production.
For the next few nights we stayed at Rooms Hotel. We moved back there to be beside Vera Park. Although this is supposed to be one of the top hotels in Tbilisi and one of the most expensive we would never stay here again. It was overpriced, the service was terrible and there were some situations that made us uneasy. They have a restaurant across the road, Lolita, that is a great place for lunch.
Some logistical tips:
Get a SIM card the moment you enter the arrivals hall in Georgia, all the networks have stands there and you can choose a package that suits. We went with the main one, MagtiCom but they are all pretty much the same.
Download the taxi app Bolt, taxis are so so cheap. 4GEL everywhere central which is around one pound GBP/EUR. You need to bring cash, most things are paid for in cash. Even the foreign exchange booth at the airport didn’t accept card which we thought was bonkers!
