From Mestia we were heading for a one night stop in Batumi before crossing over into Turkey. It was a 6 hour trip and we had booked our tickets the previous day, for an 8am departure. When I saw the very tired, old Ford Transit van that was to be our transport, I wasn't certain that we'd make it out off town, let alone Batumi. We had definitely booked 2nd class. For a while it seemed like we would be the only passengers. At the last minute a couple of Israel...

Mestia is in the Svaneti mountain region in northern Georgia,about 20kms from the Russian border. It's a little off the tourist trail but well and truly on the hiker's trail. The taxi we had organised the night before arrived early and we arrived at the bus station to see the Mestia bus beginning to load. The interesting thing about the 18 passengers was that they were all tourists. And the 2nd bus that they called in to cope with the demand was the same. A...

Kutaisi was just a 1 night stop enroute to our mountain destination of Mestia. We were picked up by our taxi at 8.30 and by 9.00 our bus to Kutaisi was pulling out of the Tbilisi bus station. So far we have done fairly well with our transport arrangements, albeit more by good fortune than brilliant planning. The first hour of the journey was a route we had travelled before. The country side was nothing special, mainly rural with the odd town or village. Kutais...

Our next destination was Kutaisi, enroute to Mestia in the north west. Whilst on paper it was possible to get from Telavi to Kutaisi in one day, it would involve 2 taxi rides, 2 marshrukty rides about 8 hours of travelling and for everything to go asolutely right. We weren't confident so opted to spend a night in Tbilisi and travel onto Kutaisi the following day. For the trip back toTbilisi we opted to take a shared taxi. This is basically a car that leaves ...

Apparently wine making in Georgia dates back 8000 years. With Kakheti, the centre of the Georgian wine industry being about a 3 hour drive from Tbilisi, it seemed an opportunity not to be missed. So we piled aboard the Tbilisi-Talevi express bus service (a slight exaggeration) to see what the hype is about. As a town Talevi is just that. But as you drive in there is no doubt that vineyards and fruit production are the heart and soul of the region. Typical of m...