Beaches in Georgia

A short Black Sea coast, around three hundred kilometres of dark pebble backed by subtropical wetland and the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus. Batumi is the resort city, rebuilt since the 2000s with a skyline of towers and casinos that draws visitors from Turkey and the region, a long pebble promenade, and a botanical garden on a cliff nine kilometres north that is the best thing on the Georgian coast. The rest of the shore is quiet, humid and green in a way the Black Sea's reputation does not suggest: Adjara is among the wettest regions in the Caucasus, tea and citrus grow on the hills behind the beaches, and the Kolkheti wetlands north of Poti are a Ramsar site of peat bog and flooded forest. The water is brackish, effectively tideless, and warms to the mid-twenties in summer, which makes for easy swimming; the season is effectively July and August, because the rain either side of it is serious. Gonio and Kvariati, south towards the Turkish border, have the clearest water and the steepest pebble. Practically: the coast is a few hours from Tbilisi by train or a short flight, prices are low by European standards, and the pebble means beach shoes are worth having. Sulphur springs, wine and the mountains inland are the reasons most visitors are in the country at all.