Museum · Ozurgeti, Ozurgeti Municipality, Guria
Ozurgeti History Museum
ოზურგეთის ისტორიული მუზეუმი
The regional history and ethnography museum of Guria in Ozurgeti, holding finds from the ruined ancient city of Vashnari alongside Colchian Bronze Age tools and ancient coinage.
Where it is
41.9226, 42.0051
Why go
Treat it as what it is, a regional museum: worth a stop for anyone travelling through Guria rather than a reason to cross the country. The strongest material comes from Vashnari, including stones carved with Greek inscriptions, ornamented column capitals, a furnace and sections of water pipe. Older material covers the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, with Colchian axes and hoes and gold pieces from early antiquity, and the coin collection runs from Colchian tetri and gold coins of Alexander the Great's time to medieval Georgian and European silver. Ethnographic displays, fine art, antique printed books and a French rapier donated in the 1950s complete it.
Near Ozurgeti History Museum
Monastery
Shemokmedi Monastery
A walled monastery beside the Bzhuzhi River in the Guria village of Shemokmedi, where Prince Vakhtang I Gurieli built the domed 'Zarzma' church in the 16th century for the Transfiguration icon brought from Zarzma Monastery.
5 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Lake
Tbikeli Lake
An oval mountain lake at 1,900–2,000 metres in the Kintrishi Protected Areas of Kobuleti municipality, home to the Red-Listed Caucasian newt and reached only on foot or horseback.
18 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Park
Kolkheti National Park
A coastal wetland national park on Georgia's Black Sea shore around Lake Paliastomi near Poti, protecting Colchic marsh and lowland forest on a bird migration route.
29 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Park
Batumi Botanical Garden
A 108.7-hectare botanical garden opened in 1912 on the Green Cape, 9 km north of Batumi, set along about a kilometre of Black Sea coast and arranged in nine phytogeographic sections and three parks.
34 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ