It seems that it was me who brought good weather to Batumi (or so I told myself) - it was a beautiful, crisp morning, with lots of sunshine.

It was a pleasure looking out of my balcony, having a view of the Black Sea, plus at Orbi Tower, where I had stayed in May.

The view from my room

I treated myself to a English breakfast in a place called The Hedonist 😉. One interesting fact is that both the staff and the guests were from Russia. To be more precise, there are lots of Russians living in the city, some escaping the war with Ukraine (not to be drafted, see my blog of May 2024), some just trying to lead a better life in a Black Sea resort town than in Russia. It seems there are very little formalities needed for Russian citizens to work in Georgia - and the border can be crossed freely. Even the post office employees were Russians - just as most of the cafés were on Russian hand.

While eating breakfast, a biker came to have coffee, so I told me to sit with me. Surprise, surprise, he was from Russia and told me about a well-equippred bike store in town.

Hungarian guy living in Austria eating English breakfast in Georgia

One thing about prices - partly due to the influx of Russians, partly due to inflation, prices for going out in Georgia are not cheap. For the breakfast you can see above, I ended up paying around €15, not much lower than a similar food e.g. in Budapest would cost.

I did some more sight-seeing in the town, saw a couple getting married, visited the nice buildings I had seen earlier, watched people catching fish.

Daylight fading away

In the evening, I finally met Ella, at a restaurant called LA JeLe, you can guess where the staff was from - well, Russia. We discussed our upcoming trip, the one we would start the day after. We had a pumpkin soup, which was different than the one I know back home, but still very good...I had a dessert, which was also tasty.

It had been a pleasant day, this Sunday.