Pre-Tour – CITY OF TBILISI:
Shortly after making our way to the hotel and unboxing our bikes, we were presented by our host with a HUGE bottle of home-made wine – very fitting gift from the cradle of wine making! We proceeded to down this with an array of assorted breads, dips & pastries purchased around the corner – promising way to begin, gastronomically speaking. We then set off on the bikes to explore the city, which turns out to be a delightful blend of the historic Old Town with a more modern sector, including a vibey street filled with bars & pavement cafes. Very relaxed atmosphere, English is not a major problem, easy to draw cash, friendly people, good food & wine, reasonable priced, ticks all the boxes…
Day 1 – TBILISI TO KORSHA:
After a hearty Georgian breakfast, we took a lift out of the traffic madness of the city and began our cycle on a lake just 50km from our destination of Korsha – an easy warm-up cycle along the river ending at a fabulous, authentic “art hotel” where the hospitality was warm, the food all homegrown and homemade and the artwork a quirky mix of family talent and clever usage of wood and old odds and sods – we drank homemade beer, wine and schnapps and had a LOT of laughs with some German and Polish hikers – good start. 😎
