Travel to Batumi

Batumi’s story stretches back over two millennia to when ancient Greek colonists established trading posts along the Colchian coast—the legendary land of the Golden Fleece. The city’s name derives from the Bat River, and its deep natural harbor has made it a strategic prize throughout history. The Romans built the mighty fortress at Gonio to guard this gateway between East and West. Byzantines, Genoese merchants, and Ottoman rulers each left their mark before the Russian Empire acquired the city in 1878 under the Treaty of San Stefano.

The late 19th century transformed Batumi into a sophisticated European-style port city. As the terminus of the Baku-Batumi oil pipeline, it became one of the world’s most important petroleum shipping points. Grand neoclassical buildings rose along its streets, designed by Italian and German architects. The famous boulevard took shape in 1884 under French landscape designer Michel D’Alfons, earning him the title ‘kind genius of the Batumi coast.’ Today, with a population of around 187,000, Batumi blends this rich heritage with bold contemporary architecture, creating a city unlike any other on the Black Sea coast.

Batumi’s soul resides along its magnificent 7-kilometer boulevard—a monument of Georgian garden-park art since 1987 and the city’s most cherished landmark. More than 40,000 trees and plants line this seaside promenade, where palm trees, bamboo groves, and flowering magnolias create a subtropical paradise. The historic lighthouse, built in 1863 by French engineers, holds a unique geographic distinction: it stands precisely at the intersection of the 41st parallel north and the 41st meridian east, the only structure in the world at such coordinates.

Beyond the boulevard, Batumi reveals layers of architectural wonder. Europe Square showcases elegant Belle Époque buildings alongside the 130-meter Alphabetic Tower, its spiraling DNA-like structure displaying the 33 letters of the Georgian alphabet. Nearby Piazza Square recreates a corner of Venice, centered on Europe’s largest figurative marble mosaic—a 106-square-meter masterpiece crafted from over 88 million tiny tiles. The Old Town’s cobblestone streets wind past the ornate Batumi Cathedral, the 19th-century Ashkenazi Synagogue, and the Orta Jame Mosque, testifying to the city’s multicultural heritage.

Nine kilometers north of the city, the Batumi Botanical Garden crowns the hills of Green Cape—one of the former Soviet Union’s largest and most important botanical collections. Founded in 1912 by the visionary Russian botanist Andrey Krasnov, this 108-hectare paradise showcases over 2,000 plant species from nine distinct phytogeographic zones, including East Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Himalayas. The garden preserves a 3-hectare remnant of ancient Colchic forest—the subtropical woodland that once covered this coast—along with 125-year-old magnolias, Japanese sakura gardens, and panoramic viewpoints overlooking the Black Sea.

Just 15 kilometers south, the mighty walls of Gonio-Apsaros Fortress rise near the Turkish border. Built by Roman legions in the 1st century AD, this rectangular stronghold spans 4.75 hectares within 900 meters of walls guarded by 18 towers. Excavations have revealed Roman bathhouses with mosaic floors, military barracks, and a water supply system that served five cohorts of soldiers. For travelers seeking wilder landscapes, Machakhela National Park lies 30 kilometers inland, protecting 8,733 hectares of ancient Colchic forests, medieval stone bridges from Queen Tamar’s era, and dramatic waterfalls plunging through mist-shrouded valleys.