I’d still deciding whether or not to publish this because I don’t think any of it is going to be helpful to anyone but let’s talk about how much my week in Tbilisi cost me. Most of the activities were included in my Traverse conference ticket and while my instinct was to say that it was quite expensive, it actually wasn’t and it certainly wasn’t for the amount of trips included in it. But let’s start from the very beginning.
Getting there
I’m going to do a separate post this week on getting to Tbilisi from London but suffice it to say, I spent quite a while with a spreadsheet trying to figure out how to get there. What I ended up doing was Heathrow to Larnaca, Larnaca to Tbilisi 36 hours later, and then Tbilsi-Istanbul-Amsterdam on one booking and Amsterdam to Heathrow on a separate booking on the way back. I spent two nights in Cyprus because I opted to spend a full day there instead of going straight to the airport the next morning.
This is the painful bit.
Heathrow to Cyprus: £84.88
Cyprus to Tbilisi: £190.47
Tbilisi to Istanbul to Amsterdam: £241.90
Amsterdam to Heathrow: £89.23
Total: £606.48
Accommodation
I spent two nights at the Best Western Larco Hotel on the south side of Larnaca. It was fairly easily accessible from the airport and had a pool but it was far enough out of town to not be too noisy. I then spent seven nights in Tbilisi, at the Penthouse Hotel, which is in the tumbledown area of the Old Town, between Avlabari Square and Metekhi. Both included breakfast.
Best Western Larco: £171.45 (£85.72 per night)
Penthouse Hotel: £272.83 (£38.98 per night)
Total: £444.28
Traverse ticket
Ok, what did this actually included? Two days of conference with lunch both days, snacks and a networking breakfast on Sunday. There was an evening drinks event just about every night although I only went to one, and only stayed ten minutes. Then there were various trips and what I got out of it was:
Transport to and guide at the Chronicle of Georgia
Old Town tour, wine tasting and lunch (I skipped the lunch)
Funicular to Mtatsminda, photo session and drinks & cakes in the cafe
Cloisonne enamel class, Georgian supra feast & guided tour of Mtskheta and cathedral + transport
Trip to Uplistsikhe, supra & free time in Mtskheta + transport
I couldn’t find exactly our tours, especially not with the transport and the meal but the total was £183.81 – I got a pre-sale ticket back in September. Early bird tickets went on sale towards the end of October, I think, and full-price tickets in January. I think I got a lot for what I paid.
Transport
I got the bus from Larnaca airport to the hotel on Saturday evening and Monday morning and that was £2.06 each way. Then when I arrived in Tbilisi, I bought a blue transport card for £0.58 and put a seven day subscription on it for £5.80, which gave me 20 journeys per day on the metro, bus, minibuses and a cable car that I never found. It expired on Sunday evening so I had to pay separately for my bus journey back to the airport and that was £0.44. Honestly, it probably would have been more cost-effective to just pay for my metro journeys with my contactless debit card but I like to have the transport card as a souvenir and also the security of knowing that I’m getting around without worrying about where my debit card is.
I also had to buy an orange Metro card for the Narikala cable car, which was £0.58, one single journey and one return journey which came to £2.19 altogether.
Total: £13.71
Food
You’d think with breakfast included and a supra or hotel lunch most days, I wouldn’t need to spend much extra on food but I have an eating disorder which makes food difficult so I did do some supermarket shopping. I popped in for supplies most days. I also had some chips & a drink from Burger King in Larnaca (I was there on a Sunday when all the supermarkets are either out of reach or closed), a Subway at Istanbul airport (£18.44 for a footlong, drink & cookie, are you joking??), some drinks and chocolate at various airports and then supplies from Carrefour or Goodwill throughout the week.
Total: £113.10.
Sulphur baths
This was my other big chunk. I tried out three different sulphur baths on four occasions and I had a traditional kisi peel.
Chreli Abano (room 6, 1-2 people): £29.00
Kisi peel: £5.80
Royal Bathhouse (room 4, basic): £31.90
Royal Bathhouse (room 4, again): £31.90
No 5 Bathhouse (room 4, small)£ 20.30
I wouldn’t have missed them for the world, honestly. It was my absolute favourite bit about Tbilisi, getting to sit in a hot water bath after a long day.
Total: £118.90
Souvenirs
I bought some postcards in Larnaca and to be honest, I didn’t get a receipt and I paid in cash and I have no idea how much I spent. Let’s put it at €3, £2.58 according to my spreadsheet. I also bought the decorative kisi mitten at Chreli Abano and now I can have a proper Georgian scrub in the bath at home. That cost £5.80 as well. And I bought an enamel ring at Ikorta for £23.20. I meant to get some Tbilisi postcards but somehow I never made it into a shop and so that was it. Postcards, ring, mitten.
Total: £31.58
Anything else
I’ve examined my spreadsheet for anything else I spent money on and the only thing I can come up with was the medieval castle at Larnaca which I popped into for a while for the princely sum of £2.58.
Total: £2.58
And now let’s do the sums and find out how much I spent between Saturday morning and Monday evening the next week.
Flights: £606.48 (40% of total)
Accommodation: £444.28 (29.3% of total)
Traverse ticket: £183.81 (21.1% of total)
Travel: £13.71 (0.9% of total)
Food: £113.10 (7.5% of total)
Sulphur baths: £118.90 (7.9% of total)
Souvenirs: £31.58 (2.1% of total)
Other: £2.58 (0.2% of total)
Grand total: £1,514.4
Yeah, the flights were expensive. I’ll tell you more about that on Thursday. Accommodation could have been cheaper but then again, a lot of people stayed at the Radisson Blu and I’d rather not think about how much that would have cost so I felt like I was the one operating on a budget anyway. I definitely could have cut costs at the sulphur baths but I didn’t want to. I’m actually a bit surprised how much I spent on food but then the Subway was incredibly expensive and I didn’t need to go to Burger King. On the other hand, I bet there’s not that many people who’d manage £113 on food & drink for ten days.
It’s a hideous amount of money, now I’m looking at it. But a huge chunk of that is because of the flights.