On the cusp of Europe and Asia, Tbilisi offers a truly fascinating glimpse into a rapidly changing post-Soviet city. Stuart Wadsworth investigates.. Flying in, the first thing you see is the TV mast: a huge, flashing monument which President Sakashvili has, for reasons best kept to himself, decided to light up like Blackpool tower with garish neon lights, a kitsch 200m symbol of modernity, of the city's reaching for the skies, and symbolic of its eager attempts ...

Kakheti & Tusheti: Chilling out in Georgia's Wine Country and Mountain Wilderness "A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry." Having finally negotiated the Azeri border, I felt an almost indescribable sense of relief being back on the Georgian side of the border, and, naturally, decided to 'chillax' (as the kids irritatingly say these days) for a few days in Kakheti, Georgia's wine country, before...

BORJOMI & VARDZIA After my exertions in the mountains, I decided to kick back for a couple of days in Borjomi, a quaint spa town in the southern part of Georgia. Producer of its most famous brand of bottled water which is drunk all over the country and exported around this part of the world, Borjomi is a great place to relax. Mini-bus from Tbilisi (all journeys in Georgia seem to start and end here, like the hub in the middle of a wheel), three hours o...

KAZBEGI - Mountains of Poetry The heat got too much eventually and I had to escape the city. Five days of searing temperatures, over 40 degrees every day; Tbilisi was a furnace, and I sought sanctuary in the mountains. Luckily, the mountains are all around you in Tbilisi, and you're out of the city in minutes on a 'marshrutka'. These little white buses are everywhere in Georgia - and the Caucasus and near east in general - and they are often the only option...

TBLISI Flying in, the first thing you see is the TV mast: a huge, flashing monument which President Sakashvili has, for reasons best kept to himself, decided to light up like Blackpool tower with flashing neon lights, a kitsch 200m symbol of modernity, of the city's reaching for the skies, and yet symbolic of its over-eager attempts to westernise at the same time. A bumpy descent - twenty minutes of being buffeted about - had brought on a bout of silent pra...