Itinerary, wheres and whens
HAPPY NEW YEAR! WE WISH YOU LOTS AND LOTS OF TRAVELING AND GREAT EXPERIENCES! We have had a bit of a break but you know how it is, you have plenty of time during the holidays and then you are always so busy. But finally, we're back and we're starting our Georgia series - full of fun, surprises and rule-breaking (not on our part, of course ;)).
So now we can say we've been to Georgia (for our American readers: the country, not the state). It seems that an obvious reply to this is "who hasn't?!" and it certainly looks like that. Georgia is the new "IT" destination (it's the new Santorini, right? :D) but if you've been reading our blog regularly, you know that that's more of a con than a pro for us. Anyway, Telchac has talked about this for two years and we finally made it happen! So if you're planning a trip to Georgia or you're just interested in what Georgia is like, keep on reading (and coming back)!
Trip details:
When? End of August
How long? Nine and a half days
Locations? Tbilisi, Stepantsminda, Vardzia, Shekvetili, Mestia, Ushguli (roughly)
How? Plane & car rental
What model? Embraer RJ-190 & 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser Prado (4x4 necessary if you want to drive around Mestia/Ushguli safely)
KMs driven? 1 800
Max nights at one location? 2
First, the easiest part - creating the itinerary. From the first moment we started to plan this, Telchac knew he wanted to do Stepantsminda and then we came up with Mestia and Ushguli. Tbilisi was an obvious choice as we landed there and also departed from Tbilisi. Then I found Vardzia and Telchac did not hesitate and added this "short drive" to our already packed itinerary. It was true that few days before we left I got a bit anxious, I wasn't sure if we were going to make it all in time (we had mostly prepaid bookings so the struggle was real ;)).
I am attaching our itinerary so you can see. Later on, we had to change our plans a bit - but I will tell you about that later.
Useful tip: If you go on a similar Georgian road trip (which we highly recommend), check if there is an outbound flight from Kutaisi. It might save you one day spent in the car, driving across the country.
Weather and clothes-wise it was a bit tricky - "normal clothes" for Tbilisi, "beach resort numbers" for Shekvetili, warm outdoor for Stepantsminda/Svaneti and light outdoor for Vardzia. At least the shoes were (kind of) simple - 1 pair of hiking shoes, 1 pair of flip-flops and 1 pair of trainers had to be enough. My usual dressy dresses had to stay where they were and I had to buy some more athletic/outdoor stuff (not Telchac, though. He's all set when it comes to that). I had 3 pairs of shorts, 3 pairs of 3/4 leggings and 2 pairs of long leggings (plus a pair of denim shorts). Then I had 9 athletic/outdoor (is there a difference?) t-shirts and 9 normal t-shirts (in hindsight I could have taken fewer). No chance we could have gone with a cabin bag only :D.
As I said, our only fear at that point was whether we were going to make it back in time (car pick up and drop off were both in Tbilisi), or what we had to do to make it back in time. There were so many things that could go differently (meaning wrong :D) that the only way was to wait and see what happened.
Our day before the first day was the day we arrived in Georgia. We landed in Tbilisi at midnight (GMT +4) so we were happy to get to the hotel (because we had been working that day and we needed to sleep it off before the adventure started). The holy schedule was upon us :D. Or as we say in our homeland - what you cook for yourself, you will eat yourself (translated freely :D).
It's the new year, you have to get used to writing a new year number at work, so I will not tell you more, you've got a lot on your plate. So I'll see you in two weeks. Hope, you're looking forward to that! C U then!
So now we can say we've been to Georgia (for our American readers: the country, not the state). It seems that an obvious reply to this is "who hasn't?!" and it certainly looks like that. Georgia is the new "IT" destination (it's the new Santorini, right? :D) but if you've been reading our blog regularly, you know that that's more of a con than a pro for us. Anyway, Telchac has talked about this for two years and we finally made it happen! So if you're planning a trip to Georgia or you're just interested in what Georgia is like, keep on reading (and coming back)!
Trip details:
When? End of August
How long? Nine and a half days
Locations? Tbilisi, Stepantsminda, Vardzia, Shekvetili, Mestia, Ushguli (roughly)
How? Plane & car rental
What model? Embraer RJ-190 & 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser Prado (4x4 necessary if you want to drive around Mestia/Ushguli safely)
KMs driven? 1 800
Max nights at one location? 2
First, the easiest part - creating the itinerary. From the first moment we started to plan this, Telchac knew he wanted to do Stepantsminda and then we came up with Mestia and Ushguli. Tbilisi was an obvious choice as we landed there and also departed from Tbilisi. Then I found Vardzia and Telchac did not hesitate and added this "short drive" to our already packed itinerary. It was true that few days before we left I got a bit anxious, I wasn't sure if we were going to make it all in time (we had mostly prepaid bookings so the struggle was real ;)).
I am attaching our itinerary so you can see. Later on, we had to change our plans a bit - but I will tell you about that later.
Useful tip: If you go on a similar Georgian road trip (which we highly recommend), check if there is an outbound flight from Kutaisi. It might save you one day spent in the car, driving across the country.
 |
| As you can see it was a mouthful for 9 days but we made it! Without a scratch! Almost ;) |
Weather and clothes-wise it was a bit tricky - "normal clothes" for Tbilisi, "beach resort numbers" for Shekvetili, warm outdoor for Stepantsminda/Svaneti and light outdoor for Vardzia. At least the shoes were (kind of) simple - 1 pair of hiking shoes, 1 pair of flip-flops and 1 pair of trainers had to be enough. My usual dressy dresses had to stay where they were and I had to buy some more athletic/outdoor stuff (not Telchac, though. He's all set when it comes to that). I had 3 pairs of shorts, 3 pairs of 3/4 leggings and 2 pairs of long leggings (plus a pair of denim shorts). Then I had 9 athletic/outdoor (is there a difference?) t-shirts and 9 normal t-shirts (in hindsight I could have taken fewer). No chance we could have gone with a cabin bag only :D.
Our day before the first day was the day we arrived in Georgia. We landed in Tbilisi at midnight (GMT +4) so we were happy to get to the hotel (because we had been working that day and we needed to sleep it off before the adventure started). The holy schedule was upon us :D. Or as we say in our homeland - what you cook for yourself, you will eat yourself (translated freely :D).
It's the new year, you have to get used to writing a new year number at work, so I will not tell you more, you've got a lot on your plate. So I'll see you in two weeks. Hope, you're looking forward to that! C U then!