In this article, I will share notes and points of interest from our latest trip to Batumi during the Orthodox Easter 2022.
We were traveling from Tbilisi Railway station by train, paying GEL 25 for a seat in second class (The price for the seat in first class was GEL 60, business class GEL 100). Comfortable 2-story Swiss-built Stadler train, the total travel time about 6 hours. Just a few stops - Tbilisi - Ureki, Kobuleti, Batumi.
Batumi railway station is not located in the city center, so we took a Taxi (Bolt app) and paid about 5-6 GEL for a transfer to our hotel near the Boulevard. We chose to stay at Best Western Premium hotel, which is located out of the city center but offered a king-size bed with an additional bed for our daughter, free breakfast, and access to the heated indoor swimming pool for just GEL 200/ per night. In total paying GEL 800 for a 4-night stay here.
Originally I had an idea to hire some local driver and explorer the Khulo area and Chakvi (I wanted to film tea plantations), but in the end, we decides to take it easy and enjoy our swimming pool, trade some stocks and bitcoin futures from the hotel room. Which I in fact enjoyed. As an options trader, I always enjoy trading from different places and then diving into a swimming pool or Ocean.
I hired Bolt to take us to the Batumi Botanical garden, we spent a beautiful day here and made a ton of drone footage. The entrance price is GEL 15 per person. We were lucky enough to catch a taxi also back from the Botanical garden back to the city, where we had a nice dinner at some of the local restaurants. ordered some chmereuli, adjaruli and more. Lovely.
It seemed there are a few shopping malls to visit in Batumi, but from the outside, they looked rather non-promising and we didn't even try. One day we spent wandering around Batumi bay and port, visited Batumi miracle park with the famous statue of Ali and Nino while having some ice cream at Piazza square. On our last day in Batumi visited Batumi Central park and had a very good dinner at Grill Town restaurant.
On our way back to Tbilisi, on the train, we met a Greek / Latvian couple and the hours passed fast. Easy going trip. Budget? About GEL 1,400. Unfortunately, this was not a very good weekend for trading, was able to collect just a mere $40 from selling call options and about $14 from trading bitcoin futures. So cannot say trading this time covered our expenses :)
On the other hand - I found some inspiration for launching Batumi Real estate crypto token