Batumi Getting there & around

Getting there & around

As well as marshrutkas, buses and trains to other Georgian destinations, Batumi offers flights and overland transport to Armenia, and flights and ferries to Ukraine.

Bus & tram

Bus, marshrutka & taxi

Taxis to or from the Turkish border at Sarpi, 17km south, cost 15 GEL to 20 GEL; marshrutkas cost 1.50 GEL. In Batumi marshrutkas to Sarpi start from Tbilisis moedani. The border is open 24 hours daily and crossing it is normally straightforward, though there can be queues at weekends. Note that ‘Hopa’ marshrutkas from Batumi go to the Hopa bazaar, a huge market outside Batumi – not Hopa in Turkey!

In Tbilisi, marshrutkas to Batumi (18 GEL, seven hours) leave Didube bus station at least hourly from 8am to 8pm or later. Further marshrutkas and buses (at least every two hours, 9am to 5pm) leave from the back of Tbilisi’s main train station.

In Batumi the main marshrutka and bus station (30163; Maiakovski 1) has buses to Tbilisi (about hourly, 7am to midnight), Poti (5 GEL, 1½ hours, eight daily, 8am to 6pm), Kutaisi (8 GEL, 2½ hours, hourly, 7am to 8pm), Zugdidi (10 GEL, three hours, at 11am, noon, 4pm and 6pm) and Akhaltsikhe (18 GEL, six hours, 8.30am and 10.30am) via Khashuri and Borjomi.

From about May to September there’s a marshrutka to Akhaltsikhe (15 GEL, six hours, 11am) via Khulo – a route through mountainous interior Adjara which is not passable in winter. Also from here, Lüks Karadeniz (33984) runs buses to Trabzon in Turkey (20 GEL, three hours, every 1½ hours, 11am to 5pm).

Further marshrutkas to Tbilisi go hourly, between 7.30am and 11.30pm, from the old train station (cnr Asatiani & Zubalashvili).

Marshrutka 26 runs between the bus station and Tbilisis moedani, which is the terminus for marshrutkas 138 to Gonio (0.90 GEL) and 142 to Sarpi (1.50 GEL), both every 20 to 30 minutes.

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Air

The new airport (76649) is 5km south of town on the Sarpi road. Turkish Airlines flies three times weekly to Istanbul and the small Georgian airlines Tbilaviamsheni and Marsi fly to Ukraine (Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov and Donetsk) once or more weekly. Tbilaviamsheni also has three flights a week to Yerevan.

Marshrutkas bound for Gonio or Sarpi from Tbilisis moedani will drop you at the airport.

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Sea

Ferries sail about once weekly to Ilyichevsk (Ukraine) from Batumi’s sea port. The local ticket agent is Instra (74119; Kutaisi 34). At research time Batumi’s passenger ferry terminal (74912; Gogebashvili 3) stood idle – apart from furnishing information about sailings to Sochi in Russia from Hopa in Turkey, 30km from Batumi – after the Batumi–Sochi ferry was suspended in 2007.

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Train

Batumi’s shiny new Makhinjauri station (54158) is about 5km north of town on the Kobuleti road. Marshrutka 20 (0.40 GEL) runs here from Rustaveli and Gogebashvili, as does marshrutka 1 from Gogebashvili just east of Chavchavadze. The comfortable sleeper train to Tbilisi (3rd-/2nd-/1st-class 15/23/40 GEL, eight hours) departs at 11.25pm; it’s best to book ahead for this (and essential in summer). There’s also an afternoon train to Tbilisi at 4.45pm (one-class seating only, 20 GEL, seven hours), and an 8am elektrichka to Kutaisi (four hours). In July, August and the first half of September a train departs every second morning to Yerevan (3rd-/2nd-/1st-class 30/46/91 GEL, 21 hours).

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