Kars to Tbilisi – Borders, Fortresses and Amber Wine

Crossing borders on foot is a ritual that makes you feel history pressing against your ribs. You walk past the last Turkish kiosk, a sun-bleached portrait of Atatürk frowning at your departure, and then, with a few stamps and the perfunctory glare of men in uniforms, you are in Georgia. The tarmac doesn’t change, but the air does – spiced, slightly sweeter, and full of the suggestion that you have stepped into a country that is both Europe and Asia and neither.

The journey from Kars to Tbilisi is long, stretched taut like an old road map. No convenient train; no sleek coach. Just a series of private transfers and minibuses stitched together into something resembling an itinerary. Expensive, time-consuming, and absolutely essential if you want to feel the contours of the land instead of soaring over it in an aircraft.

By late morning, we reached Akhaltsikhe, a town balanced between obscurity and grandeur, thanks to its fortress: the Rabati Castle. A stone colossus patched with towers, crenellations, and layers of history that feel Ottoman one moment, Georgian the next. Wandering its walls is like rummaging in the attic of empires.

For lunch, I slid into a table at Old Rabati, a restaurant within the shadow of the castle walls. The waitress brought khachapuri – bread oozing cheese like some pastoral revelation – and a plate of khinkali, those dumplings shaped like pleated pouches, bursting with beef and black pepper. Food is always one of the best ways to get to know a country, and Georgia is no exception. Among the first things we tried was khachapuri, the legendary cheese-filled bread that is almost a national symbol. The Adjarian version, shaped like a boat, carries a bright yellow egg yolk in the middle, representing the sun. Its form is thought to have ancient origins, and breaking into it feels like touching something deeply rooted in Georgian tradition. Later, in the Svaneti region, we discovered a completely different khachapuri: round, without the egg, and overflowing with cheese – a mountain-style twist on this classic.

Then came the khinkali, Georgia’s answer to dumplings. They can be filled with meat, potatoes, or mushrooms, but the real secret is in the broth trapped inside. There’s a precise ritual to eating them: you grab the dumpling by its little “stalk,” take a small bite, sip the hot, flavorful liquid, and only then eat the rest – leaving the stalk on the plate. At the end of the meal, the number of stalks becomes a badge of honor, showing how many you managed to devour. It reminded me of home in Sardinia, where proudly counting the culurgiones you’ve eaten is just as much a part of the feast as the dish itself.

A carafe of amber wine followed, its cloudy glow unlike anything poured in Italy or France. Georgia insists it invented wine – 8,000 years ago, in clay qvevri sunk into the ground – and drinking it here, earthy and alive, it’s impossible to argue. They say Georgia clung to Christianity so that they wouldn’t have to give up their wine. Looking at the golden swirl in my glass, I almost believe it.

The meal ended in a haze of Georgian beer, music thumping from the next room, men and women spinning in folk dances that looked older than the Crusades. Then came the marshrutka – the infamous Georgian minibus, a vehicle that makes every ride feel like an adventure. Crammed with bags, elbows, and the faint smell of diesel, it lurched out of Akhaltsikhe and rattled its way towards Tbilisi. The driver swore at the road, the road swore back, and somehow we arrived intact.

By dusk, I was in Tbilisi. The city unfolded like a promise – domes, hills, sulphur baths, and the sense that here, at the edge of Europe, you are always on the threshold of something larger.