Lying across both Europe and Asia, Georgia combines the best of both. Georgia’s scenic beauty draws tourists, but its culture and cuisine are what bring them back. While it’s unclear if Georgians really invented wine as they claim, they have been making wine in buried clay jars for 8,000 years, with hundreds of local varietals. Georgian cuisine has a place of honor throughout Eastern Europe, with its savory meat dumplings, cheese-filled flatbread, and a surprising amount of vegan food, taking advantage of the country’s bounty of walnuts, pomegranates, beans, and eggplant. It has many unique delicacies hard to find elsewhere, such as strings of nuts suspended in thickened grape juice, forming a candy resembling a sausage.
Georgia’s location has made it the intersection of empires for millennia. Alexander the Great fortified its mountain passes, as did the Romans and Persians. Georgia was also the destination of Jason and the Argonauts. This long history is clearly visible, from cave cities to ancient churches. Cosmopolitan Tbilisi can be hard to place, with its combination of Turkish baths built alongside a river flowing from hot springs, past Byzantine churches, Soviet modernism, and Art Nouveau. The Old Town, which lies beneath a castle, has its own unique form of architecture, with colorful wooden homes featuring large, carved balconies. With its hospitality culture, low crime, and heavy investment in tourism, what was once Eastern Europe’s best-kept secret is opening itself up to the world.
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