{"id":657,"date":"2019-01-23T07:09:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T07:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/v5.tbilisicore.online\/?p=657"},"modified":"2019-01-23T07:19:20","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T07:19:20","slug":"why-georgia-the-country-belongs-on-your-travel-wish-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"Why Georgia (the Country) Belongs on Your Travel Wish List"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ann Abel<\/a> Senior Contributor Forbes.com
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When I began telling friends that I was going to Georgia\u2014a country that had been on my wish list for a long time\u2014I got all sorts of responses. Some thought I meant the state. Some asked if it was safe. (Yes.) Others had their eyes light up with envy or happy memories of their own trips to the country. And one gave me some useful packing advice: Bring loose-fitting clothes and pants with elastic waistbands.<\/p>\n

The food in this former Soviet republic, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, is superb. And wildly abundant. The word for a Georgian meal is\u00a0supra,\u00a0<\/em>which is best translated as \u201cfeast.\u201d This is no joke. There is also a saying that \u201cthe guest is a gift from God,\u201d meaning hospitality is valued\u2014and\u00a0largely expressed through cooking.<\/p>\n

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At some restaurants, servers put plates of food on top of other plates of food because there is no more room on the table. The bread, which is made in an unusual, traditional style using a clay oven, is addictive. The tomato and cucumber salad that shows up at every meal is consistently delicious. In fact, all the fresh vegetables are extraordinary. There are pies filled with cheese and meat, sausages galore and dumplings stuffed with all sort of things. And there is always more.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have a single bad meal during a nine-day trip (as a guest of the tourism board), but the standouts were at the cozy\u00a0Poliphonia<\/a>\u00a0in Tbilisi and at\u00a0Pheasant\u2019s Tears,<\/a>\u00a0a boutique winery in the charming town of Sighnaghi, known as the \u201ccity of wine and love\u201d (thanks the 24-hour availability of civil marriages).<\/p>\n

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My companions and I laughed at that name, because all of Georgia is a place of wine and love. The latter is seen in that genuine hospitality. As for the former, the country is considered the birthplace of wine, with evidence of viniculture stretching back more than 7,000 years. There are more than 500 varieties of grapes grown all around the country, and winemakers making traditional wines in clay jars and adventurous ones with contemporary techniques. Many are natural or organic, and most are delicious. (And the quantity of the wine tends to keep pace with the quantity of food at those meals.)<\/p>\n

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Food and wine are the main draws for Georgia\u2014and a primary reason that visitor numbers have doubled since last year\u2014but hardly the only one. The High Caucasus are stunning, dotted with picturesque villages and ancient churches. (The country was also one of the world\u2019s first to adopt Christianity, in 337 A.D.) They\u2019re also ideal for hiking. There are natural hot springs and sulfur pools, especially the ones near Borjomi Park.<\/p>\n

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And then there\u2019s Tbilisi, a city that has been sacked 27 times but emerged as a distinctively cosmopolitan place with contemporary architecture mixed in with the historic buildings, a rich caf\u00e9 culture and a boom in wine and cocktail bars. It is one of the few cities left in the world that feels like absolutely nowhere else. I saw one Wendy\u2019s and one Dunkin’ Donuts, but that was it for globalization.<\/p>\n

At the massive Saturday flea market, you can buy a gas mask, Soviet military paraphernalia, random taxidermy or beautiful enamel jewelry. From there, you can stroll through the trendy neighborhood of Plekhanov, with its old-style houses,\u00a0its lively Agmashenbeli avenue and the multifunctional\u00a0Fabrika<\/a>,\u00a0in which caf\u00e9s, bars, ateliers and boutiques fill a former Soviet sewing factory.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of cool, the boutique hotel scene is something of a surprise. While the old-school, five-star\u00a0Ambassadori<\/a>\u00a0makes a perfectly lovely home base (with a gorgeous cocktail bar), I swooned when I saw the new\u00a0Stamba<\/a>, a Design Hotel in a 1930s publishing house, where the original printing presses still squiggle overhead and giant trees soar in the five-story \u201cliving lobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s right around the corner from the\u00a0Rooms Hotel<\/a>, an outpost of a homegrown brand that\u2019s gaining something of a cult following among hotel nerds like me. It\u2019s likewise trendy and stylish. The\u00a0Rooms Hotel Kazbegi<\/a>\u00a0is no less chic while being suited to its mountain environment.<\/p>\n

After all, it\u2019s important to have a nice place to nap after that midafternoon\u00a0supra.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ann Abel Senior Contributor Forbes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tbilisicore.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}