This is your destination guide for Georgia.
This is your destination guide for Batumi and the Adjara Mountains
📍 Part of GeorgiaA Black Sea boulevard lit up like Las Vegas, a botanical garden on a cliff, and green mountains that get more rain than almost anywhere in Europe.
The reality: It's evening on Batumi Boulevard. The sun goes down over the Black Sea, and two tall steel figures by the harbour, Ali and Nino, begin to move towards each other, pass through each other and drift apart again. Behind you, the towers along the coast switch on their lights, one by one, in every colour.
Batumi is Georgia's seaside resort and the capital of Adjara, a few kilometres from Turkey. It's loud, new and a bit over the top, with casinos, half-built skyscrapers and pebble beaches packed in August. If that were all, it wouldn't get a page. But behind it rise the subtropical Adjara mountains, with rainforest-like national parks, waterfalls and a medieval stone bridge, all within an hour.
Spend two days by the sea and two in the hills.
A seaside boulevard, a skyline and a lot of neon.
Batumi Boulevard — kilometres of seafront with palms, bike lanes, cafés and old trees. Walk it from the port to the Alphabet Tower, wrapped in the letters of the Georgian alphabet, and wait for Ali and Nino to move at dusk.
The old town — 19th-century houses behind the seafront, Europe Square with its golden Medea statue, and the Piazza, an Italian-style square full of cafés.
Argo cable car — up the hill for a view over the city and the coast.
The skyline — hotels, apartment towers and casinos, some finished, many not. An odd mix, and fun for a night or two.
The best thing on the coast isn't a beach.
Batumi Botanical Garden — on the Green Cape, about 9 km north, and the real reason to come. Founded in 1912 on steep terraces above the sea, with bamboo, eucalyptus, magnolias and Japanese gardens. Give it half a day.
Gonio — a Roman fort south of the city, with its walls still standing in a big square around a garden.
Sarpi — the border village, with clearer water and a cliff to jump from.
Kobuleti and Chakvi — a long, quieter pebble beach north of Batumi, and hills of old tea plantations behind it.
Rainforest, waterfalls and an old stone bridge.
A bread boat with an egg in it.
Acharuli khachapuri — the Adjarian kind comes from here: a boat-shaped bread filled with melted cheese, a lump of butter and a raw egg. Stir the egg and butter into the cheese, then tear off the crust and dip. Share one at lunch. It's very filling.
Borano — cheese melted in butter in a clay pan.
Sinori — rolls of thin bread baked with cottage cheese and butter.
Black Sea fish — bought at the fish market and cooked in the restaurants upstairs, grilled or fried.
Summer is busy and humid. Rain is always possible.
June and September — the best months for the sea: 24–28°C, warm water, fewer people.
July and August — high season, humid and crowded, and hotel prices double.
May and October — good for the mountains and the garden, 16–22°C, but rain is common.
November to March — mild, 6–12°C, wet and quiet. Batumi gets rain in every month, so pack a jacket whatever the season.
Train in, taxis around, a driver for the hills.
Getting there — the train from Tbilisi takes about 5 hours, in comfortable double-decker carriages. Batumi Airport has flights from Istanbul and seasonal flights from Europe. The Turkish border at Sarpi is a 30-minute drive.
In Batumi — walk the boulevard, rent a bike, or use Bolt taxis. City buses go to the Botanical Garden and Gonio.
Into the mountains — marshrutkas go up the valley to Khulo. For Mtirala, Makhuntseti and Goderdzi in one day, hire a driver.
The old town, the seafront or the hills.
Old Batumi — small hotels and apartments around the Piazza and Europe Square, walking distance to everything.
New Boulevard — tower hotels with sea views and pools, a long walk from the old town.
Green Cape and Chakvi — quiet guesthouses near the Botanical Garden, above the sea.
Kobuleti — cheaper, calmer beach hotels north of the city.
Mtirala and the Adjara villages — simple guesthouses in the forest and up the valley.
Find Batumi stays →Cheap food, summer hotel prices.
Batumi is cheap most of the year, but hotel prices jump in July and August, when half the region comes to the coast. Food and transport stay cheap, and the mountains cost even less.
Prices in 2026 Georgian lari. 10 GEL is about €3. Hotels cost about half outside July and August.
Go if you want a neon seafront, a cliff-top garden, Adjarian khachapuri and green mountains just inland. Skip if you need sand, an old town or dry weather. Four nights, half by the sea and half in the hills.
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