8/9/19 Last day in Trabzon and trip to Georgia

Our last day in Turkey was spent wondering around the old city of Trabzon, returning the hire car and getting some supplies for the long bus trip to Tbilisi.

View from our hotel balcony - in the centre of Trabzon

I was suspicious about a bus trip to Tbilisi.  I'd bought the ticket online, but the timetable only showed a 2 hour trip from the Turkish border to Tbilisi and it was about 300km and I couldn't find any way of getting further information so was nervous.  The bus was coming through from Istanbul at 10.30, but to be on the safe side, we got to the station at 9.  Still no bus at 10.45, but then I received a phone call from someone who didn't speak English.  I gave it to a guy at the bus station, and it was to tell us that our bus was waiting outside the bus station, so we nearly missed it!!

It turned out to be an 11 hour trip!! Everyone had to get off the bus at the border and go through customs etc then after about 2 hours, the bus finally came through for us to continue our journey.  We were about the only English speaking people on board so fairly difficult to find out what was going on.

I'd given vague instructions to our hotel in Tbilisi, who'd offered to pick us up from the bus station.  I wasn't sure of the address, and thought we were getting in at 5.30pm when it turned out to be about 11.30pm.  But while on the bus I came across a business card with a phone number for the bus company in Georgia.  I sent this to the hotel via Whatsapp, but had no way of knowing whether they received the message.  Anyway, when we got off the bus, there was a man standing with my name on a piece of paper - I gave him a big hug - fantastic, and what a welcome to Tbilisi!!