Alar Kuuda

"I was there in august 2009. The whole Georgia is full of mountains and nice views. Also as Georgia has a state religion already since 3rd century, there are a lot of very old and impressive churches still standing all over Georgia, with the oldest being over 1200 years old. The sea side (Black Sea) is not yet developed to the point the western people would consider it a place to have a family vacation - at least from my point of view. Lack of trash cans, not talking about rest rooms etc. However it seems, that tourism is their priority now and hopefully this will change soon. Another cautious remark - the traffic is really crazy there. The driving manners are compareable to Cairo, though the cars are better. No rights for pedestrians. However I really liked my trip to Georgia. I was visiting Tbilisi, Batumi, Akhaltsikhe, Gudauri, Sighnaghi, Mtskheta. The best way to go there is to get friends locally. They have very high level of hospitality. They might even use their last penny for the guests, so one should take care, that their hosts would not suffer of it (insist to pay for the travel/dinner etc...) As of travelling through Georgia, it is also possible to make deals with some taxi driver. For example we had one trip to the mountains 120 km from Tbilisi. It took ca 8-9 hours, with sunbathing near river and making stops for photos every now and then. The driver was very friendly and the price agreed was ca 50$ (i tipped 10$ extra). There are also a lot of minibusses driving around. Metro in Tbilisi costs ca 0,2$ Places to stay... Usually taxi drivers know... I had friends there, so did not need to think too much about it. The big hotels are usually very expensive. The private houseing business seems to just starting (nothing to compare with Crimea for example where it's extremely easy to find a place to stay near beach with A/C for 30-40$/night per room/apartment)"