Romantic Georgia in 8 days: three rooms, no rushing
Eight days is short, so this route does the opposite of covering ground. Three places, three nights each in the first two, and days built with one thing in them rather than four.
- Duration
- 8 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 3
- Best months
- May, Jun, Sep, Oct
- From
- $2,400 per person
What makes Georgia work for a trip like this is not the scenery, which is good but not unique, and not the hotels, of which there are perhaps twenty in the country worth the word. It is the eating and drinking. A long lunch in a vineyard that turns into an afternoon, a cellar where the man pours from the qvevri with a ladle, and a table on a balcony in Sighnaghi at dusk with the Caucasus lit along the horizon. We build the days around meals and let the sightseeing be the excuse.
Who it suits: couples, honeymooners, and anyone whose idea of a good day involves sitting down for three hours in the middle of it.
Your specialist: a named Georgia specialist here, with our Tbilisi partner team running the ground.
Day by day
Days 1 to 3: Tbilisi. Three nights in a restored courtyard house in Sololaki or on the edge of the old town, with a balcony, in a district where you can walk out to dinner.
Day one is arrival and a table we have booked. Day two is a private guided morning through the old town and the sulphur quarter, then the afternoon at the Abanotubani baths in a private room, which is what those bathhouses are actually for and costs very little. Evening at a natural wine bar in Vera, of which there are now a dozen serious ones.
Day three is deliberately empty. Suggestions in your document: the Chronicle of Georgia on the ridge above the reservoir, which is enormous and strange and almost nobody goes; the botanical garden in the gorge below Narikala; the flea market; a cooking afternoon in a private kitchen learning khinkali, which is harder than it looks.
Days 4 to 6: Kakheti. Two hours east to the wine country. Three nights at a wine estate or a restored manor with vines to the horizon, a pool, and dinner cooked by the family who own it.
Day four: arrival, an afternoon at the estate, and a private cellar dinner where the courses are built around the wines rather than the other way round.
Day five: Sighnaghi in the morning, the walled town on the ridge, the walls themselves, the Bodbe convent below in its cypresses. Lunch is the point of the day, at a marani in a village nearby, cooked by a woman whose kitchen it is, four hours long. Afternoon back at the estate doing nothing.
Day six: a private day among the family cellars, three of them, with a driver so neither of you is counting glasses. In late September you can pick and press, which is a better afternoon than any tasting.
Days 7 and 8: Kazbegi, or a fourth night in Kakheti. North up the Military Highway, about four and a half hours from Kakheti, to a room with a wall of glass facing Mount Kazbek at 16,512 feet (5,033 m). One night, an evening on the terrace, and in the morning the walk or the drive up to the Gergeti Trinity Church before the day visitors. Then back to Tbilisi and out, which is a long day.
If that sounds like too much driving for the last two days of a short trip, and for some people it is, we drop it, add a fourth night in Kakheti and a night in Tbilisi, and the route becomes softer. We will tell you which we would choose based on your dates and the weather odds.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout in three properties we have inspected, a private car with an English-speaking driver on every transfer and on the wine days, a licensed guide on two mornings, a private room at the Tbilisi sulphur baths, a private cellar dinner in Kakheti, a long lunch at a family marani, three family cellar visits with the winemakers, all entries, restaurant reservations for every night with the tables we would want, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Tbilisi partner team throughout.
What we would change, and when
- Honeymoon? Tell us and we will move the Kakheti nights to the best room on the property and put the cellar dinner on the night that matters.
- Not drinkers? This route loses about a third of its point, and we would say so. We would move you to the boutique route, which is built around buildings rather than bottles.
- Travelling in July or August? Kakheti is hot and Tbilisi is hotter. We would go north earlier and give you two nights at Kazbegi where it is fifteen degrees cooler.
- Want the sea? Two nights in the Adjara hills above the coast, not in Batumi, is a good alternative to Kazbegi and adds a day.
Honest notes
Georgia does not have many genuinely excellent hotels. It has a handful, mostly in Tbilisi and Kakheti, and after that a long tail of pleasant guesthouses. We would rather put you in three good rooms and repeat nights than move you every day chasing an upgrade that does not exist.
Sighnaghi is very pretty and it was rebuilt as a tourism project in the late 2000s, so it is neater than a Georgian town normally is. Go for the setting and the walls, not for authenticity.
The Kakheti to Kazbegi drive is four and a half hours and there is no way to shorten it. It is the price of putting the mountain at the end of a short trip.
A Georgian supra, the feast with the toastmaster, is not a quiet dinner for two. It is a room full of people and a great deal of wine, and it is one of the best things in the country. We will offer you one and we will make sure it is not on the night you wanted to be alone.
Built by your named Georgia specialist, checked against notes our founder made in the field.
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