This one’s long overdue. Honestly, it’s only taken me so long because it’s nearly impossible to know where to start. Like any good romcom, there have been a few (mostly entertaining) bumps in the road during my relationship with Georgia. So, I’ll just start at the usual place: the beginning.

This love story begins like most life-changing romances: with a good meal.

Back in 2018, I visited Stockholm for the first time. I have a friend there (hi, Noora!) who insisted that we must go out to her local Georgian restaurant for dinner. “Sure,” I said. “Never had Georgian food before.” Little did I know that it’d begin a years-long obsession that I’m yet to find a cure for.

I have no memory of what I ate that night beyond khachapuri. But that’s all it took. Turns out a simple cheese bread can unlock doors, change worldviews, and shape the way you live forever. Okay, I’m maybe going a little over the top here, but what can I say? I’m in love!

From that point on, I took every chance I could for an hour or two in the company of a cheese-filled dopamine boost and the heady delights of an orange wine. The butterflies in my stomach (or was it hunger?), the wonder of discovering something new and different every time… Like the early days of any romance, I was always left wanting more.

From then on, I’d carve out time to savour even the smallest taste of Georgia whenever I could — and sometimes, I even felt like it was seeking me out, too. From Scotland to Estonia, Lithuania to Türkiye, we began seeing the world together. Georgia loves to travel too, it seems. 

A year after first tasting that stringy liquid gold encased in its soft, bready vessel, I finally decided it was time to take our relationship to the next level. I needed to experience the real deal, so when Jack’s sent me a £38 return trip from London to Kutaisi (I was a just member back then!), I couldn’t say no. 

But unfortunately, that trip wasn’t to be. As talk of Coronavirus spread around the world, the idea of travelling solo to a completely new country where I’d have zero language skills wasn’t appealing. Instead, I still made the trek to London, where I would have caught that flight, and consoled myself with some khachapuri there before hunkering down at home for a year and a half.

Fast forward a couple of years, and it was time to try again. In 2022, I discovered that I was not the only one among my group of friends who had been harbouring a fascination with the Caucasian country. And after a couple of years mostly stuck at home, we were ready for adventure.

By that time, I had begun working at Jack’s, so I knew all the hacks for finding cheap flights. Since that convenient London-to-Kutaisi route hadn’t made it out the other side of the pandemic, I had to get creative. With nothing but small backpack bags stuffed to the brim, we budget airline-hopped from Edinburgh to Katowice, and then over to Kutaisi. Anything to reach my beloved Georgia!

After a late landing and a long immigration queue, we finally emerged from the airport and dashed to catch our 3.5-hour coach to Tbilisi. It’s important to note at this point that, due to the slight delay in arriving, we hadn’t managed to pick up a Georgian SIM in the airport, and none of our phones supported an eSIM.

After about 50 minutes on the bus, we ground to a halt just before entering the highway. And good job, too, because ahead of us there had been a landslide. Every car on the motorway was stuck with no escape.

Thankfully, we were able to get off the road and into a local town to wait until the road was cleared. Cue hours of expensive communications with our Airbnb host using roaming data, shockingly rustic railway station loos, knocking on the window of a 24-hour pharmacy for water (and chocolate), and playing in the snow.

After a restless night aboard the coach with 40-odd others, it became clear that the driver had no idea when we’d be able to move again. Thankfully, the one passenger who spoke both Georgian and English knew of a 6am commuter train, headed to Khashuri, which would perfectly circumnavigate the closure. So off we went.

Tickets acquired, we made our way towards the beaten-up, single-carriage Soviet relic on the platform. It was still dark, there was no indication that this train would take us where we wanted to go, and we couldn’t speak the language. As I grabbed the handles by the door to pull myself up into the unlit train, my husband jokingly (but somewhat prophetically) went full horror movie and whispered the words, “Welcome to the abattoir.”

That’s when the stench of raw meat hit me like a ton of bricks. As I moved through the first compartment, I was greeted by huge plastic containers full of mystery cuts of mystery animals, accompanied by grubby older guys in dusty work clothes. I quickly averted my eyes and made my way onwards through the darkened compartments.

Eventually, in the second-last of 8 compartments, I found a couple I recognised from our bus and joined them—this felt safe. Ish. We sat down on the solid bench seats, knowing we had a couple of hours of discomfort ahead of us, but at least there would be safety in numbers, right?

A few minutes later, the train started squeaking ominously along the platform, still in complete darkness. Sleep-deprived and basing our whole onward journey on the word of one seemingly kind man on the bus, we began to accept that we may be chugging along to our deaths.

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Now, you may be wondering if this can possibly still be a love story, but stick with me. Every relationship has its ups and downs, and this was definitely a bumpy patch. But it does get better… eventually. Hang in there.

—

The lights in the train compartment flickered on and off for the next two hours. All we could see out the windows was the occasional glowing neon cross on the hillside, which only added to the discomfort.

But when the darkness lifted, and the sky became navy blue, we could make out the snowy, mountain landscapes of the Imereti region around us. It was breathtaking. Snow-dusted trees scaled from the valley below to the peaks above us, churches and monasteries now peeking out as the sun rose through my rose-tinted glasses.

The train meandered on for a couple of hours, occasionally stopping at another tiny station in the middle of nowhere to squeeze on yet more commuters. Eventually we pulled into a relative metropolis and the train’s final stop, Khashuri (population: 28,000).

Holding our breath, we manoeuvred our way off the train past containers of meat and into the snow. Relief — we had made it off alive! 

And then we remembered that we still had to get to Tbilisi.

CC image courtesy of Dāvis Kļaviņš on Flickr

That was a whole other ordeal. One that definitely made me wonder if my affections had been misplaced. There were no onward trains to the capital, so we decided we’d see what our fellow airport coach survivors were planning. The word on the street was “marshrutka”, a kind of minivan/taxi hybrid common in ex-Soviet countries. 

When we approached the marshrutka drivers pitched up at the station, they welcomed us in, then suggested that we all put our bags in one vehicle and travel in another. Alarm bells started ringing, so we politely declined that offer, and opted instead to trudge 20 minutes through the calf-high snow to the bus station… which turned out to be boarded up. Not a bus in sight.

In front of the station, however, stood another marshrutka, magically containing some of our earlier coach and train buddies. So, we gave in and hopped aboard. We asked the driver how much the ride would cost (7 Georgian lari, around $2.50/€2.20/£1.90), then, realising we still hadn’t been to an ATM, decided we’d worry about how to pay the driver once we got to Tbilisi. 

Ducking through the door, it was immediately clear this would be a cosy ride. The seats were narrow and it seemed like the van was already nearly at capacity. But as we squeezed to the back, our fellow passengers flipped down previously invisible bench seats where the aisle used to be. A cosy ride just got cosier, but thankfully nobody on board had questionable hygiene — other than us, by that point.

Remarkably, the marshrutka ride went off without a hitch (there are plenty of articles online that prepare you for a ropey ride), stopping only a few times along the route upon request, and we arrived in Tbilisi around 1.5 hours later. I say “Tbilisi”, but it was actually a more like a sea of marshrutkas surrounded by a market, the city visible in the distance.

We bundled off and asked the driver where we could find an ATM. He gestured into the distance, around a corner. Sleepless and bleary-eyed, one of my friends volunteered to go and find cash, while the rest of us stayed with the driver as collateral. 

After a long five minutes, he returned successful, and we were free to finally explore Tbilisi. We attempted to put our limited brainpower together and form a plan for reaching our accommodation. Ultimately, the lack of SIM struck again, and negotiating with the local taxi drivers was our best option.

The gang of drivers saw us coming a mile off — foreigners with no clue and few options. They quoted high, I haggled until we settled upon a price for the two cars we’d need to carry the five of us. I’d pay for both once we arrived. Sounded easy. But in the maze of the old town, one of the drivers lost his way, ultimately dropping off my friends 5 minutes away and requesting payment before they left.

They paid. I also paid for them. We had been conned, like everyone warns you might happen with taxis in foreign lands. We later learned that using the Bolt ride-share app was the best way to avoid this — again with the needing data! 

But honestly, by that point, we were just grateful to have arrived. We were finally in Tbilisi, the quiet rabble of butterflies in my stomach beginning to flutter once again.

The winding streets of the old town revealed a glorious mix of old and decaying, colourful, modern, and lush with every turn we took. Street art, stained glass, old tram cars converted into cafés and bars. Even the street cats and dogs looked healthy, and happy to be there.

Despite the lack of sleep, we pushed on. Dropping our bags at the apartment, we more or less went straight back out the door. Our first stop? The artsy bar across the road with a roaring log fire, coffee, wine… and khachapuri.

Over the next few days, we learnt that there was more to Georgian cuisine than just the khachapuri (though we still shared one with every meal). That was great news for the vegan in our group, of course. His choice of stuffed bread product was the lobiani — essentially a khachapuri, but stuffed with beans instead of cheese. 

Another favourite was pkhali, a brightly coloured assortment of vegetable and walnut pâtés, usually accompanied by cornbread. Vegetables and walnuts are a recurring theme in Georgian cuisine, especially aubergines, peppers and mushrooms. Every meal is a vibrant feast for the eyes before it even hits your lips.

And of course, you can’t leave Georgia without trying khinkali, a usually delicious, soupy dumpling. Unfortunately, we made a poor choice of touristy restaurant for khinkali on that first trip, just heading to a central spot beside the Meidan Bazaar. But more recently, I visited colourful Cafe Daphna, and I have no notes. 10/10.

I’d be remiss not to mention the wine and chacha in Georgia, too. They’re pretty proud of their wine, to say the least, resulting in a never-ending battle with Armenia over who invented it in the first place. Either way, the wine culture is really old (like 8000 years old), and their traditional techniques of fermenting and ageing wine in a clay qvevri buried in the ground are still used today. 

We knew a bit about the wine culture in advance, but what we didn’t realise was that it meant the city would be truly littered with wine bars. Even our Airbnb had a wine cellar below it, run by the family who owned the apartment. And almost every bar or restaurant we visited had a signature wine, often made on the family farm in the Khaketi region. 

Chacha, the local spirit, is made from the grape skins, seeds and stems that are leftover after pressing the grapes to make wine. It’s kind of like a brandy, and oh boy, does it give you that warm fuzzy glow! 

The best risk we took on that trip was buying a large, unmarked plastic bottle of wine from a stall in an underpass. It turns out that cheap and cheerful homebrews can really put a smile on your face in Tbilisi. What I’ve since learned, however, is that you’re not meant to drink that wine on the trains. Oops.

That first trip only really allowed enough time to explore Tbilisi, with a brief overnight in Kutaisi before our flight home. As first big trips away with a new love go, this one was pretty great, and the effort involved felt more than worth it. I’d say we appreciated each moment we spent with Georgia even more from those early bumps in the road.

As I boarded the first of our no-frills hops home, I knew I would have to return — and soon.

And return I did, in 2024, this time with family. Learning from the previous traumatic journey, we splashed out on flights directly to Tbilisi. We based ourselves there again, this time for a full week, while building in time for day trips further afield to visit wineries, monasteries, cave cities, and more. We saw beyond the big cities, soaking up more of the country’s ancient history (and wine). 

Once again, we ate a khachapuri and drank a qvevri wine with every meal, and it was every bit as good as that first cheese-filled bite in Stockholm, if not better. We walked the same streets, revisited cafés and galleries, maybe even saw the same street dogs. And somehow, I still want more. 

The week after we left in October ‘24, Georgia held a new election, the results of which did not go in favour of the more liberal, European-leaning parties. There have been demonstrations outside the parliament building every day since, some of which have turned into full-blown riots. 

For now, Georgia still seems safe to visit, although I’d advise anyone considering going to keep tabs on the news, and ensure that your travel insurance will be valid if the situation on the ground changes. 

Hopefully this is just another bump in the road for Georgia, and for our relationship, not least because I’m already planning my next visit. I’ve got grand plans of experiencing the Rtveli harvest festival, visiting the country’s only fish market in Batumi on the Black Sea, and, of course, returning to Tbilisi. And once I tick those off, I’ll be checking back in with the absolute bible of all things Georgian travel, Wander-Lush, for more ideas.

What started as a fleeting fancy for a tasty slice of cheese bread has turned into a full-blown long-term relationship — albeit, a rather long distance one. But Tbilisi’s mark on my heart (and stomach) is enduring.