Kutaisi: a place I didn't know anything about before the trip

If someone had told me a few years ago that one day I would end up in Georgia thanks to a friend's bachelorette party and would accidentally fall in love with Kutaisi, I would probably have just laughed. I knew about Tbilisi, I had heard about Batumi, I imagined Georgian mountains, wine, khachapuri and feasts, but Kutaisi was practically absent from my tourist dictionary. So when a friend wrote to our shared chat one day: "Girls, I've thought of everything, we're going to Georgia for a bachelorette party," I immediately imagined a beautiful hotel, glasses of wine, photos in dresses, and an obligatory table that would look like we hadn't come for three days, but decided to feed the whole area.

To the question "Where exactly?" My friend replied quite calmly: "In Kutaisi." I honestly started looking for it on the map right away, because I didn't want to pretend once again that I knew the geography perfectly well, and then it turned out that I couldn't tell anything about it except the name of the city. However, it didn't upset me at all at the time, because I had a feeling that the main thing in a bachelorette party was company, and the place could be opened on the spot.

Kutaisi turned out to be completely different from how I imagined it.

The first impression was very pleasant, but I still waited for some time for that Georgia of my expectations to begin, with endless feasts, noisy streets and the feeling that now someone would definitely invite us to drink wine. Kutaisi turned out to be much calmer than I imagined, and that's what surprised me a little at first. There was no sense of a large tourist city, where every second person was in a hurry, and every first person was trying to sell you a magnet with a local landmark.

We walked through the streets, talked about everything, took pictures literally near every beautiful building and periodically stopped to eat, because in Georgia it is generally difficult to pretend that you are not hungry. At some point, I realized that while we were talking, I had completely stopped looking at my phone and checking what was interesting nearby, because the city itself turned out to be interesting enough to just walk wherever my eyes looked. However, after a while it became clear that "where your eyes are looking" is not always the best way to navigate, especially when your eyes are busy photographing.

The bachelorette party almost turned into an excursion

The next day, we decided that one city wasn't enough for us, and we started discussing where we could go. The friend who organized all this had already found several places in advance, and we all pretended to be listening attentively, although each of us was thinking mainly about breakfast at that moment. As a result, the conversation ended with the fact that we decided to see the surroundings of Kutaisi, and I still believe that it was then that our usual bachelorette party finally turned into a small trip.

We saw a completely different Georgia – green, mountainous, a little wild and very photogenic, and so much so that the phone gradually began to turn into the main participant in our company. We stopped every now and then to take pictures, then returned because "the view was even more beautiful there," and then got back in the car and promised ourselves that we would definitely make the next stop the last. Of course, she has never been the last one.

I finally understood why it's worth coming here.

What surprised me the most was that before this trip I did not perceive Kutaisi as an independent tourist destination at all. In my head, it was just some kind of Georgian city that exists on the map and is probably needed by someone, but why exactly to go there, I did not understand at all. And then I found myself there myself, and suddenly I found myself thinking that I liked the lack of a sense of a "mandatory program."

I liked walking through the streets without a clear plan, looking into small cafes, sitting at a table with my friends and discussing everything in the world, and then suddenly discovering a beautiful old house or a cozy courtyard nearby. In Kutaisi, for the first time in a long time, I felt that a trip does not necessarily have to consist of ten sights a day to be remembered, sometimes just good company, a beautiful city and the feeling that you are not in a hurry are enough.

And, of course, there was a small failure.

Our bachelorette party wouldn't be our bachelorette party if at least once things didn't go a little wrong. One evening, we decided to walk to the right place on our own, because, of course, why would we need a taxi if we have legs, a phone and the collective mind of four women. The collective mind lasted for 15 minutes, after which it turned out that each of us was sure that someone else knew the way. We walked for quite a long time around the Chain Bridge spanning the river Rioni. By the way, we found out later that archaeologists found the remains of a 5th-century stone bridge in this area.

Chain Bridge

We took a few wrong turns, then started arguing with the map, and then we just stopped and started laughing, because it was too late to go back, and no one could explain exactly how we managed to get lost on a fairly simple street. As a result, we were saved by a local woman, who seemed to understand from our confused appearance that tourist navigation had officially failed today, and showed the way.

I left Kutaisi with an unexpected thought.

When it was time to return home, I caught myself in a completely unexpected feeling.: I was a little sorry to leave. I was on my way to Georgia for a bachelorette party, thinking mostly about my friends, beautiful photos, delicious food and a few fun evenings, but in the end I took with me the memories of a city that I didn't know much about until recently.

It's probably these trips that you remember the most, because you don't have time to figure out in advance what the place should be. Kutaisi didn't have to meet my expectations, because I had almost no expectations, and perhaps that's why he surprised me so easily.

The Rioni River

Now, if someone asks me what I know about Kutaisi, I won't silently open the map like the first time. I'll tell you about our endless walks, Georgian food, green surroundings, the Rioni River and our attempts to navigate on the phone, and the very bachelorette party that was supposed to be just a fun trip with friends, but in the end introduced me to a place that I had hardly thought about before.

And, perhaps, this is one of the best things that can happen on a trip: to arrive there, which you know nothing about, and leave with the feeling that you have found a small piece of the world, which now for some reason has become yours.