Kutaisi and other Georgia Hotel/Accommodation Reviews

KUTAISI: Lali Jalaghania runs an excellent guesthouse not far from the Bagrati cathedral on the hill overlooking the city.
40 laris (20 US dollars) per room per night, including enormous breakfast and evening meal.

Unique Qualities: Lali is a great host, and manages to look after travellers despite her lack of foreign languages...sign language and Georgian is extremely useful here! The food was amazing, as were the views of Kutaisi from the balcony.

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Theme: Bed and Breakfast
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter

KAZBEGI: The best option in Kazbegi is staying in a private home...easy to find - just chat to people on the bus, or ask around when you arrive. There is a huge Soviet-built hotel, but it is full of refugees from Abkhazia at the moment. Someone told me about a second hotel, although I saw precious little evidence of one!
I paid 45 lari (about 22US$) for two nights accommodation and food. You can ask for a price without food, but as there are no restaurants (or no obvious ones at least) in Kazbegi, you'll have to prepare to be hungry throughout your stay!

Unique Qualities: By staying in a private home, you get to see just how difficult life can be here. I stayed two nights, and during that time there was no electricity. Running water was not a problem, as the mountain streams provide more than enough...it is just a little bit cold though, coming straight from the nearby glaciers! It was cold at night, and I visited in August....I can't imagine what it must be like to live here during the winter, when the village is cut off from the rest of the country for three or four months because of the heavy snow on the roads.

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Theme: Bed and Breakfast
Comparison: least expensive
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter

BORJOMI: Lonely Planet failed me here...they recommended the Hotel Tbilisi, which is free of refugees and supposedly quite upmarket (for Georgia). They certainly had free rooms, but unfortunately that was all they were, rooms. No water, because there were no taps in the bathrooms, no sheets because there were no beds. The lobby was impressive, with marble floors and chandeliers, but there was no-one behind the desk to show me a room, and I had to search the town for the owner. He told me to go to one of the sanatoria, which don't usually accept casual guests without a doctor's note, but they would rather break the rules than see you sleep rough in the street.
I paid 5 lari (US$2.50) for a room for the night. I arrived after meal time, but someone found a half-eaten loaf for me. My room was next to the toilets, and had a window looking onto the corridor, so all night the infirm shuffled past and had discussions on their way to relieve themselves.

Unique Qualities: The smell of cabbage, the pictures of people enjoying themselves in Soviet times on the walls, the joyless faces of the current guests (mostly old), and the cinema-style seats in the lounge. It felt very much like a Home for the Bewildered.

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Theme: Other
Comparison: least expensive
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter
Directions: Not far from the Mineral Water Park is the Sanatoria Firuze (well, at least I think that was the name...it was only written in Georgian, which I am not an expert in reading!)