Roadtrip: Batumi, Georgia

 

The main destination of our 2-week trip was to visit Georgia. While it is a neighboring country it is on the East-North point of Turkey while we live in the South-West, so it is not close by for us. This was our first time and we went by car so we had a thrilling time crossing the border. It took more than an hour, an unpleasant surprise was that only I was allowed to cross the border in the car as the owner, but my mother had to walk! It was not a 2 minute walk, a not fun part.

Paperwork took a while and after crossing I also had to get car insurance for Georgia. We there soon discovered that the Georgian people are not friendly.

While Batumi is called the Georgian Dubai, we only visited the old part of the city which was beautiful, but again not a single smiling face which was depressing.

No one speaks any English either, the alphabet and language is entirely unique, making it very isolating.

We absolutely loved the old city, we only were there for less than 24 hours as we still had a 5 hour drive to Tbilisi but it was a lovely visit.

There was also a delicious street pastry sold everywhere for a very reasonable price, the dough was very different and light which made for our breakfast/lunch.

I'm always a big fan of green streets and Batumi had several luscious shady streets.

We were in Georgia for a total of 5 days, I still have plenty to share :) 

Crystal River, Tallahassee and Thomasville

At my last blog post, we were leaving Clearwater and were about to go to Crystal River. Famous for its amount of visiting manatees. They are protected and although you swim closeby with them you may not touch them and they are completely free and in their natural habitat, not an aquarium exploiting animals.

However, as it had rained the night before the water was muddy so we did not go to them as we wouldn't have seen much.
The entire town clearly financially benefits of these friendly giants as there are a bunch of tours and such. The Manatees can mostly be seen at specific (protected) parts and you have to pay to get there (either a boat trip or a National park). The Manatees go there mostly during the Winter months for warmer water.

Although no Manatees this time, we enjoyed our 1-day stay, the huge oaks with Spanish moss is always a favorite.

Since Monday we have been staying in Tallahassee, capital of Florida. We are house and pet sitting two sweet dogs through Trusted Housesitters which is the same site we use to find sitters for our own doggies while we travel.

We'll be here till the 26th and start a new housesit in St. Augustine the same day. But meanwhile, we have enjoyed this lovely city and have been mostly thrifting. Today however we went to Thomasville which is in Georgia, a state we had not visited last year.

A small historic town, the main street had some cute old buildings, now mostly touristic (cafe's, gift shops, boutiques and such).

We wanted to go there before Christmas as it might get crowded during the Holidays.

It was a nice day trip and even the 40-minute drive to the town was relaxing as the entire road was surrounded by trees.

We also went to a few thrift shops, of course.

It was a cute very American town and a lovely afternoon.

This shop, Relics, was very cool. Pretty expensive but a very inspiring shop.

Lots of rusty repurposed tools and such.

The shop was huge and full with lots of oddities, it was a quiet day so we were the only ones in there so we could admire all the pretty things.

Most thrift shops we go to are not very photographic, like Goodwill and Salvation Army, they both are chain shops for charity (all items offered for sale are donated) and have great stuff, but they do not have the fancy ambiance :) As we will be in Tallahassee for one more week I will blog about this lovely city too, next time.