Batumi

Batumi is Georgia's summer city and its strangest skyline: a Black Sea resort where a boulevard of palms and magnolias runs for kilometres beside a pebble beach, backed by an architectural free-for-all of glass towers, a building with a ferris wheel embedded in its side, and a replica of a Venetian palazzo. Behind it the Adjara mountains rise green and wet, and half an hour up the coast the Batumi Botanical Garden spreads over a headland with subtropical collections from around the world planted since 1912. The Ali and Nino sculpture on the seafront, two figures who pass through each other every evening, has become the city's emblem. Rain is a genuine feature here; Adjara is one of the wettest parts of the Caucasus.

What you actually see

• Batumi Botanical Garden - a subtropical hillside garden above the sea, north of the city.
• Ali and Nino - the moving sculpture of two figures on the seafront.
• The boulevard - kilometres of palm-lined promenade along the pebble beach.
• Argo cable car - up to a ridge with a view over the city and coast.

When to go

May to September for swimming, with July and August busiest and hottest. Spring and autumn are pleasant and much quieter. Rain can arrive in any month, and autumn storms are dramatic.

Honest expectations

The beach is pebble, not sand, and the water shelves steeply, which surprises people expecting a resort beach. The architecture is genuinely chaotic and not to everyone's taste. Batumi has a casino industry that shapes parts of the nightlife. Rain is frequent enough that a beach-only trip is a gamble.

Nearby

Mtirala National Park and the Machakhela valley are inland; the Turkish border is 20 km south.