Black Sea Jazz & Batumi Experience

Batumi in July runs on two clocks. By day the city moves slowly — swimmers on the stone beach, fishermen on the pier, the smell of Adjarian khachapuri drifting from bakeries near the old port. By night, during festival week, the Black Sea Jazz Festival brings international names to a seaside stage where the music carries out over the water. This itinerary holds both. Reserved seats cover the festival’s key evenings, while daytime excursions take the measure of Adjara: the Batumi Botanical Garden, a hundred-hectare cascade of subtropical terraces above the sea founded in 1912; the arched Ottoman-era stone bridges and waterfalls of the mountain interior; and the region’s distinct table, where the supra meets the sea. The hotel sits on the boulevard, close enough to walk home from the late sets. The pace is deliberately loose — this is a festival holiday, not a forced march.

In pictures

Your host

Mariam Janelidze

Tour Manager & Cultural Producer · Georgian, English, Italian, German

Mariam came to travel from the production side, having spent a decade managing festival logistics and artist programmes in Tbilisi and Batumi before turning to cultural itineraries. The result is a tour manager who treats a two-week programme the way a producer treats a season: timed precisely, rehearsed for failure points, and adjusted quietly before guests notice anything needed adjusting. She designs and leads the heritage and festival journeys, and her relationships across Georgia's music and museum worlds open doors that do not otherwise open.