My family and I have just returned from a trip to Georgia, which led us to discover large cities, well‑known international destinations, and small towns not yet touched by mass tourism. We met wonderful people who will stay in our hearts forever, but also some who were decidedly more irritable and unpleasant. We experienced fun moments and others that were much less so. This is the unfiltered story of what happened, and I hope you enjoy it.

Previous chapters

Chapter 1 - Alcoholic Transfer

Chapter 2 - Heading toward the ‘most precious water in the world

Chapter 3 – There’s more than just water

To taste the famous Borjomi water, you have two options: you can buy a bottle in any local supermarket for about 3 GEL (1 € = 3 GEL), or you can drink it directly from the spring inside Borjomi Central Park, which is free for residents but costs 5 GEL per person for tourists (the double pricing is a constant across all attractions in Georgia).

In the first case — the bottled version sold in over 40 countries — you get a naturally sparkling water that is distinctly salty yet surprisingly pleasant on the palate, even during meals. In the second case, however, the sensations are, for many people, completely different.

Inside the park, an attendant fills bottles (or even large jugs, depending on what you hand her) or offers a small tasting directly in a paper cup, placed there specifically for visitors. The sulfur smell and taste are much stronger than in the commercial version, and the water temperature hovers around 30°C.

But beyond the water, the park offers a spectacular walk of more than three kilometers along a dirt path through the forest, ending at the thermal baths. Once you reach them, you can choose to go in and relax in the warm waters for 15 GEL per person, or turn back and head uphill toward the park entrance.

Since it was already lunchtime, the second option was practically mandatory for us — also because we still had a few places left to visit, such as the long street of market stalls and Borjomi’s central market.

If you’ve ever been around Rimini or Durrës, you’ll immediately recognize the layout of the road connecting Borjomi’s market to the park, the two ends of the town: a straight street lined with a long series of local shops.

You can buy just about anything — fabrics, tea, handcrafted wooden items, and local wine. However, the true specialty of the area, absolutely unmissable for anyone passing through, is a kind of pine-cone jam, usually sold for 10 GEL per jar.

Inside the jar, the small pine cones are preserved in a thick sugar syrup and are mostly consumed during the cold season, thanks to their beneficial effects on the immune system and their disinfectant and antipyretic properties. The taste is quite unique — a mix between the balsamic flavor of a throat lozenge and the sweetness of a classic jam — but around here there isn’t a single household without several jars stocked in the pantry.

Our two days in Borjomi were practically over, and it was time to think about how to reach our next stop: Akhaltsikhe and its imposing fortress, one of the most important attractions in all of Georgia.

At a small tourist kiosk along the streets of Borjomi, a friendly guy informed us that the shuttle to our next destination departs every hour: all you need to do is stand at any bus stop marked with the appropriate sign and wait.

It sounds idyllic — if it weren’t for the fact that the destinations displayed on the Marshrutka windshields are mostly written in the Georgian alphabet. The question is: do drivers pull over at every stop where they see people waiting to ask if they want to get on? It’s a rather unusual system, but we had no choice other than to test its reliability firsthand.

See you next time!