I was staying in a guesthouse, with my large impressive room off the side of the main house. The owner greeted us as the taxi pulled up, and showed us his garden overlooking the town, the quaint guest kitchen where grandma would make us breakfast,
He next offered a taste of his home made wine. This seems to be a thing in Georgia, they don’t really make the wine themselves, but source grapes in other regions and get an actual vineyard make their wine. It was really delicious, a perfect way to end a day of travelling.
Borjomi itself is a fairytale land. Emerald green mountains covered with lush trees encompass the valley. The chirping of birds are ever present. And a strong river cuts through the town, adding it’s own soundtrack to the serene nature scape.
Famous throughout the former Soviet Union for its mineral water, Russian governor of Georgia, Count Vorontso developed Borjomi as a resort after his soldiers discovered a healing mineral spring here in 1810. I was told by several proud locals that Stalin was a huge fan of their water, and also that Georgia made the best Coke-a-Cola in the world because of the amazing spring water was used in the Georgian factory.
The main attraction in town is the Borjomi Central Park, created in 1850. The park includes the town’s original mineral water source, Ekaterina Spring, where locals fill up litre bottles of the fresh spring water.
For me, I was main interested in one thing in the park. And after all I said about using the modern Tbilisi cable car, here in Borjomi was an authentic Soviet era cable car, and wanted a ride on it. If Soviet technology has lasted this long, surely it speaks for its safety!
The cable car leads up to a plateau shrouded by the tree line. All you can see from the base is the cable car destination and a great Ferris wheel. Unfortunately none of these were operational, the green web of renovations wrapped around the cable car entrance, and in fact almost the entire street is just big renovations zone. It would be great to see what this area is like in a year or so when it’s all complete.
Nevertheless, while I couldn’t trust my life in Soviet engineering, the park itself is beautiful. Judging from all the closed stalls and amusement equipment, I would imagine this is a bustling area in the weekends. But here on a weekday, a handful of tourists and locals wandered the paths snaking through the lush greenery, as the sound of the river rumbled nearby.
The park is being expanded into an adventure wonderland for kids. Zip lines joined trees overhead, with small platforms. The further into the park ended with bulldozers making way for more of this tree top adventure land. This looks like it will be the number one asked for destination for kids in all of Georgia.
It was in Borjomi that I found out my favourite Georgian dish, Kharcho, actually comes in two very different incarnations. The key is when it says with walnuts, otherwise it’s on the soup menu and is literally a soup. However the better more delicious version is with crushed up walnuts, making it the consistency of a curry. It does appear the soup version is far more common, while the wildly superior walnut version I’ve only come across twice (to my great sadness).
Another go to for Georgian cooking is BBQ meat. Generally you’ll get a bowl of BBQ’d pork, chicken, or veal, and way too many potatoes. The BBQ pork in particular is damn good. If you’re not a fan of coriander, be warned, a garnish of coriander is ubiquitous in just about all Georgian dishes.
After 2 nights of relaxing and letting my legs regenerate after Vardzia, I booked the taxi for the next stop, continuing the journey West to Georgia’s 4th largest city, Kutaisi.