As Georgia is slowly reopening, I wanted to finally write about the trip Sean and I took with my parents in early March. They managed to sneak in and out of Georiga before the craziness with COVID-19 really kicked off for the entire world. While they were here, we embarked on a four-day driving trip […]
Read More
This past weekend Sean and I drove five hours west of Tbilisi to the tiny town of Shekvetili located on the Black Sea coast. We stayed a the lovely Paragraph Resort & Spa which is a part of the Marriott Autograph collection. I’ve previously written about the Paragraph back in October of 2018, and my […]
Read More
One of my absolute favorite Georgian foods is khinkali. While the name is unique to Georgia, of course, the concept is fairly universal: delicious dumplings. I grew up eating the Polish version – pierogi – and have fond memories of going to the Polish deli with my parents and then frying them up on the […]
Read More
This past weekend we were supposed to go skiing, but Mother Nature had other plans. It hasn’t snowed much in Georgia this winter – there’s barely enough snow in Gudauri for a decent base layer let alone proper skiing. Since our time here may be running thin (long story) we oped out of so-so ski […]
Read More
This past weekend we were invited to a last-minute quick trip to one of my favorite places in Georgia: Stepantsminda. When we visited this idyllic valley in June we did a ton of hiking, and the shy but stunning Mount Kazbei was completely obscured by clouds and fog. This time around we didn’t set a […]
Read More
It seems Sean and I are incapable of traveling to just one city or county at a time. After a few lovely days in Helsinki, we continued our week in Scandanavia with a visit to Stockholm. By comparison, Stockholm is the larger city, so we had five jam-packed days to explore. We arrived in Stockholm […]
Read More
Today is Orthodox Christmas, so I thought it would be fitting to briefly talk about Tbilisi at Christmastime. We were a bit bummed when planning our failed R&R and then our impromptu trip to Helsinki and Stockholm that we would miss out on the spectacular Christmas season here at home. However, since Georgia is on […]
Read More
I feel like there are two distinct times to visit Scandanavia: in summer when the sun never sets, and in winter when the sun almost doesn’t rise. I have romantic ideas about Finland, Norway, and Sweden’s midnight sun, but was always nervous about traveling towards the Arctic Circle in the winter when my Seasonal Affective […]
Read More
One of the most popular – and most beautiful – Georgian souvenirs is enamel. It seems everywhere you turn in Tbilisi there’s another shop showing off these vibrant and intricate works of art. I know by looking at these pieces that a great deal of time and effort goes into making them, and a few weeks […]
Read More
Inadvertently, Sean and I have made it a pattern to visit Christmas markets in Europe for our first major vacation at a new post. In 2015 when we left Dushanbe for the first time, we went to Germany and Brussels to get a good helping of Christmas spirit. Last year, we did the same with […]
Read More