The cost of gas this week has dropped near the lowest price it has been in three years just in time for travelers to head out on holiday road trips.
29.11.2024 - 02:41 / euronews.com
When Taylor Beckwith-Ferguson first visited Georgia in 2015, he thought he would spend a few days on the piste.
It didn’t take long for his plans to change.
“I found that Georgia has skiing that’s similar quality to the Alps but cheaper. There’s good infrastructure and good snow, and it’s not crowded,” he says.
Add the untouched backcountry and legendary hospitality, and Beckwith-Ferguson soon discovered all the reasons why this nation wedged between the Black and Caspian Seas might be Europe’s best-kept secret for snow sport disciples.
Now, he is preparing for his tenth consecutive ski season in the Caucasus. It will also be his eighth season as the owner of Vagabond Adventures, a ski school and adventure tour company based in Gudauri, the country’s premier mountain resort two hours north of the capital Tbilisi.
Gudauri is a dream for novice skiers like me. There are no trees threatening my survival, but there are plenty of inns and lodges, bars and restaurants, and ski schools such as Vagabond. Not to mention a wall of snow-capped mountains jutting out through the clouds in every direction.
The opportunities for adventure are endless.
As a more recent arrival to Georgia, I can understand how Beckwith-Ferguson felt when he arrived. “I had no intention of staying, and no plan to start a business,” he tells me.
“Georgia is a place that just draws you in.”
If you’re looking for mountains, you’ve come to the right place.
Beyond the Black Sea coastline and vine-strewn valleys in Kakheti, Georgia’s main wine region, you will struggle to find any flatlands at all.
Towering 5,000-metre peaks frame the border with Russia.
On clear days, you can see some of them, including 5,054-metre Mount Kazbegi, from your hotel room in Tbilisi.
Even the lowest-lying ski resort - Bakuriani, a four-season destination surrounded by pristine pine forests in central Georgia - is higher than 1,700 metres above sea level.
But it isn’t just that Georgia has mountains. It’s that these mountains get snow. Lots of it.
Excluding the pandemic-affected 2021, Gudauri has opened before the New Year rush eight of the last nine seasons without requiring artificial snow, an expensive and carbon-intensive measure that many resorts in Europe have turned to as climate change has disrupted business.
“Some of the lower ski resorts in the Alps are closing and basically turning into mountain bike resorts year-round,” says Beckwith-Ferguson.
For now, at least, Georgia doesn’t have that problem.
In Goderdzi, 109 km from Georgia’s bustling second city, Batumi, the Black Sea dumps so much snow, and so regularly, that the resort can open as early as November.
It sticks, too. Ski season in Gudauri and Goderdzi usually goes into April, Beckwith-Ferguson says.
In the
The cost of gas this week has dropped near the lowest price it has been in three years just in time for travelers to head out on holiday road trips.
The best trips are often a result of well-planned itineraries tailored to your tastes.
For Haitian Americans like the chef Gregory Gourdet, 49, potato salad bears little resemblance to the deli counter mainstay. Growing up in Queens, he instead ate salade russe, a traditional Haitian recipe in which potatoes are combined with peas, onions and beets, which turn the dish bubble gum pink. Today, Gourdet serves his own take on that dish as part of the summer menu at his restaurant Kann in Portland, Ore., smoking the beets and binding the ingredients with creamy rémoulade. It’s just one of a number of variations on Russian potato salad, known as Olivier — which was created in 19th-century Moscow and now shows up everywhere from Sweden to Korea — currently appearing on restaurant menus. At Eel Bar on New York’s Lower East Side, the chef-partner Aaron Crowder, 39, makes what he describes as a “New York version of the Spanish version of Russian potato salad,” informed by the ensaladilla rusa served at tapas bars that often includes green olives and roasted red peppers. He tops his with orange trout roe. Tyler Akin, 41, the chef and a partner at the Mediterranean restaurant Bastia in Philadelphia, makes potato confit in chicken fat and then mixes it with saffron-spiked aioli and shavings of Sardinian bottarga. Potato salad, he says, “just so clearly wants to be served warm and soft,” like the bacon-flecked, mayo-free German-style version that his family favors.
A rose-scented region in Azerbaijan’s mountainous northwest, Zagatala attracts travellers seeking a sweet, scenic escape.
Every passenger entering Mexico by cruise ship may soon be charged a $42 tax (€39.90) - whether they disembark or not.
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As a seasoned traveler, you’ll never catch me at the airport gate without a comfy pair of New Balance shoes, my Sonos Ace noise-canceling headphones — and most importantly — a hefty travel deal in my back pocket. For this reason, since the advent of Travel Tuesday, the post-Cyber Monday sales event offering discounts on flights, hotels, and vacation packages, I’ve learned to scour the internet for the best travel savings, always reading the details and fine print along the way.
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Considering Azerbaijan spans two continents, has a colorful history dating back millennia, and a culture influenced by surrounding countries from Russia to Armenia, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that this country is a melting pot of creativity. Just half a decade ago, even Azerbaijanis looked elsewhere for fashionable finds, as designer Nazrin Agharzayeva tells Chris Schalkx on a visit. Now, things are changing, and the capital is becoming a must-visit for adventurous shopaholics. Here, we take a look at where to shop in Baku, whether you're in search of hand-woven carpets that'll catch your dinner guests' attention, or one-off bazaar buys designed to start a conversation when you return.