Introduction
Adjara is Georgia's Black Sea corner — an autonomous republic with a subtropical climate, a seafront city that looks nothing like the rest of the country, and a green mountain hinterland immediately behind it that almost no visitor reaches.
Discover Adjara
Batumi runs along its seafront, and the seafront is the city's organising feature: a long landscaped boulevard between the beach and the town, busy with cyclists and families in the evening, with a pebble shore rather than sand. Behind it the old town keeps a quiet grid of low nineteenth-century buildings around a central square, and the contrast between those streets and the towers rising a block away is the city's defining visual joke — a rotating tower, a building with a Ferris wheel set into its side, and several others that would look extravagant anywhere. The botanical garden north of the city is the region's other set piece and among the finest in the wider region: a large hillside planting of subtropical species running down to the sea, laid out over more than a century, and worth a half-day rather than an hour. A cable car climbs from the centre to a ridge above the city for the long view over the bay.
Ways to Experience This Destination
Batumi's promenade, pebble beach, old town and improbable skyline, with the quieter Georgian resort strip running south toward the border.
The hillside botanical garden above the sea, the Roman walls at Gonio, and the wetlands and beach towns along the coastal strip.
Medieval arched bridges, waterfalls, tea terraces and high pasture villages up the Adjaristsqali valley, an hour inland and almost unvisited.
Frequently asked questions
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.