Kazbegi, Georgia

Rooms Hotel Kazbegi

Price per night from$96.00

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD96.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Causcasus cool

Setting

Mountain high

A one-time Soviet sanatorium that's been given a hip modern makeover, Rooms Hotel Kazbegi in Georgia is a slice of contemporary cool in the middle of some spectacular mountain scenery. It's the perfect setting for a Wes Anderson-eque adventure, where the stars – you – are ably abetted by a supporting cast of expert local guides, eager to introduce you to the intricacies of this intriguing East-meets-West part of the world. Flawless service from the bedecked-in-red staff gives a luxe gleam to the quirkily chic decor, which seems all the more whimsical in the heart of some decidedly wild terrain.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A bottle of Georgian wine

Facilities

Photos Rooms Hotel Kazbegi facilities

Need to know

Rooms

A total of 155, including 11 Signature rooms.

Check–Out

Noon; check-in: 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £89.73 ($113), including tax at 18 per cent.

More details

Rates usually include the daily breakfast buffet, including fresh-from-the-farm eggs, pastries and the like.

At the hotel

Sauna, gym, free WiFi throughout, laundry. In rooms: a television; air-conditioning; a minibar; free bottled water; and tea- and coffee-making kit.

Our favourite rooms

Your biggest decision when booking your trip is: mountain or forest? Both views are wondrous, but it's the snow-capped peaks that've stolen our hearts, so we'd opt for a mountain-view room. Almost all rooms are essentially identical, thanks to that good-old Soviet architecture, but splash out on a Signature room for more space and a few extra-Instagrammable design flourishes.

Poolside

The large indoor pool has mountain views, but it's pleasantly heated so swimmers stay cosy while gazing at the snow. There are loungers on the terrace, which stretches outdoors (ideal for lazing about on sunny days).

Packing tips

Bring your hiking boots if you're heading up the mountains on foot… or just your camera if you prefer to ascend in the chopper.

Also

All public spaces are wheelchair accessible, and two rooms are specially adapted.

Pet‐friendly

Bring along your furry sidekick for a one-off fee of US$59; they'll need a carrier, and larger pets must have a collar. See more pet-friendly hotels in Kazbegi.

Children

All ages are welcome, but little Smith's aren't especially catered to.

Food and Drink

Photos Rooms Hotel Kazbegi food and drink

Top Table

It doesn't really matter where you sit: the floor-to-ceiling windows make the vistas unmissable.

Dress Code

Leave your hiking boots in your room, and dress up a little.

Hotel restaurant

Traditional Georgian delights are served up alongside Western European dishes in the spacious ground-floor restaurant. The food's delicious and the service superlative, but the real star is the views. The inspiring landscape's left its mark on the menu, too: the chefs collaborate with local suppliers from the nearby town of Stepantsminda and throughout the region, with the goal of introducing dishes passed down through generations to a new audience.

Hotel bar

Adjoining the restaurant, the bar's a laid-back and hospitable spot for cocktails, with a chilled-out soundtrack and plenty of classics on the menu (Moscow Mule, anyone?) There's an inpressive array of cigars on offer, too.

Last orders

The restaurant's in action 7am to 2am. If you were still there till closing time, don't worry: breakfast on weekdays is served till a leisurely 10am, and on weekends till an even more leisurely 11am.

Room service

The room service menu of soups, salads, burgers, pastas and pizzas will satisfy late-night cravings after restaurant hours.

Location

Photos Rooms Hotel Kazbegi location
Address
Rooms Hotel Kazbegi
1 V Gorgasali Street
Stepantsminda
Georgia

Kazbegi's on the northeastern edge of Georgia, near the small town of Stepantsminda.

Planes

You’ll probably fly to Tbilisi. (The hotel's actually closer to the Russian border than the Georgian capital, but there aren't any handy airports over that side.) Georgian Airways flights from around Europe touch down at Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport (TBS)

Automobiles

While you could technically drive yourself the three hours from Tbilisi, we wouldn’t particularly recommend it. You’ll have a more relaxing journey if you arrange a transfer (plus you'll have hands free to Instagram the views).

Other

Helicopter transfers are expected to be available from Tbilisi soon.

Worth getting out of bed for

Exporing is the name of the Northern Georgian game: you've admired the mountain and forest views from your window, now get out and roam around in 'em. Rooms Hotel can arrange plenty of excursions and there's even an in-house team of expert guides ready to help you discover the region, from hikes of a few hours to days-long adventures. The iconic Gergeti Trinity Church is a must-visit spot if you like your vistas vast and want to get a sense of community life – it's a splendidly isolated 14th century site, but still hosts regular Orthodox services. The edenic setting of the Gveleti Waterfall is well worth the hike, or 4x4 ride if you're a less energetic sort; an extended adventure could see you venturing to the far-off village of Juta and spending the night in a shepherd's hut (shepherd not included). And if you fall head-over-heels for gorgeous Georgia and want to see more, ask Rooms' guides about travelling further afield: they can arrange excursions all over the country, from back in the capital Tbilisi – stay at equally hip sister properties Rooms Hotel Tbilisi and Stamba Hotel – or all the way out by the sea at Batumi.

Reviews

Photos Rooms Hotel Kazbegi reviews
Rosa Rankin-Gee

Anonymous review

By Rosa Rankin-Gee, Parisian script tease

There’s an old proverb that underpins Georgia’s beautifully intense culture of hospitality. ‘Every guest is a gift from God’, Adam, our driver to the mountains and a man who drives by horn and windscreen-wiper alone, tells us. Then he says: ‘If anyone says anything about you’ – hands off the wheel for emphasis – ‘I will have to kill him’. He looks at us in the rearview mirror. ‘Ok, ok’, he says. He softens. ‘I’ll just have to beat him up’.

I like Adam. In fact, I love him, and to be fair, our greatest foe is most likely to be the road to Kazbegi and dynamic luxury hotel Rooms Kazbegi  – an ascent through mountain passes along kirby-grip curves which whips up into wedding-cake-thick white snow at the highest points – but it’s a drive I’d (get someone else to) do (for me) again in a heartbeat. Somewhat Chaucerian in the strangeness and pilgrimage of it, the long single-track Georgian Military Highway is dotted with persimmon trees and things for sale: sheepskin hats on stilts looking like hardy winter dandelions, tombola stacks of wild honey, and local wine for sale in 5-litre water bottles. All of which Mrs Smith is convinced will fit in our hand luggage. Also, like all self-respecting pilgrims, we’re rewarded with what feels like eternal life when we get to the destination. Welcome to Kazbegi – but more importantly, welcome to Rooms.

Rooms Kazbegi is a former Soviet sanitarium resurrected from the original architectural drawings, then rewritten into an electric take on a mountain hotel, and from the first moment we step inside, it seems to say ‘Ok Switzerland, hold my drink’. Alpine meadows, tick. Nearby ski-lifts, sure. Roaring fires, of course. But everything’s just…better. In between sky-high book shelves, deep leather chairs and bright antique hand-woven rugs, the curves and fist bumps of Georgian script on antique travel posters are a constant reminder that you are magically far from home.

Having been trapped in Adam’s warship of a car for several hours by then, we go straight out onto the terrace. Here the floor-to-ceiling windows make standing in the bright winter sun feel like you’re in a Versailles-esque hall of mountains. The word ‘view’ seems suddenly ridiculous to me. How could just four letters translate to this: peaks, massifs and gorges rise and fall like sound levels dancing into spikes. Mountains that catch the light like suede. It’s like watching a painting live – the islands of passing clouds, and the patches of blue sky that appear between clouds like watercolour.

Upstairs, our room is a slender sea of warm wood surrounding a bright white bed. Like the rest of the interiors it’s a well-shaken cocktail of contemporary and collectible – hand-carved lamps sat next to Soviet-era landlines. On our writing desk, a bottle of Saperavi wine (The Writers Choice™) and an overflowing basket of guava and grapes, and then the main affair: a full-wall picture window that leads out to a private terrace kitted out with two bull’s eye rattan chairs, coupled with matching ottomans for full foot-up view beholding.

I’m not sure if it’s the scale of the surrounding mountains, or the corridors that smell of cedar, but I wonder if it’s possible to de-age at the speed of light, because I feel about 12. We take a walk. Another advantage: however sleek the hotel is inside, Rooms is not a chalet in the chi-chi Swiss mountains. This is prime Back in the USSR territory. Out in the real world, cows wander through town and Bloc-ish Ladas rattle heavy on the exhaust over cobbles. I am not a physicist or a meteorologist, but the altitude makes the air feel thinner, which makes it feel like you can see further to an almost godly degree. Above us, eagles fly slowly enough that it seems as though they’re posing. It’s a place to re-fall in love with the world. And if you are Mrs Smith, it’s the place to fall in love with a stray dog – and, when I am not looking, use extortionately expensive data roaming to look up adoption.

What can you do? They say opposites attract. I see the words ‘mountain retreat’, and I think yes, I could float for hours in the sweeping blue pool that runs the whole length of the building. But Mrs Smith…she sees the word retreat and thinks ‘never!’ I will fight this battle till it’s won!’ So, in the morning after breakfast – golden slabs of whole honeycomb, dumplings in wicker crowns and cheeseboards to put France to shame – she leads me up the sheer and ice-y slope to Gergeti Trinity church: the 14th-century stone hermitage perched like a cherry on the cake of a sharp summit 2,300 metres above sea level. After that, we ride horses called Ginger and Salman over to a spot where we can drink Borjomi, salty spring water said to have curative powers, direct from the source.

She can get her way today, because Mrs Smith is American and today is Thanksgiving. ‘Thanksgiving in Kazbegi,’ we say again and again, because it sounds so good, and that evening, we fashion our own. We sip dizzying whisky cocktails while perched up at the zinc bar, then order warm shoti bread and bright beads of red caviar at our table. We say all the things we’re thankful for and one of them is definitely this chicken with wild plum sauce that slinks around its pan-crisped skin like a sweet, sharp, technicolour dreamcoat of flavour. Beside it, tashmijabi (whipped potato with a bronzed ocean of melted souvlaki cheese atop it), and a Georgian salad doused in miraculously rich and thick walnut pesto. 

We also give ourselves an elaborate self-guided tour of Georgian wine. We share one espresso, then two. Dessert wine, green-apple pie, then more thanks. In the lobby, of all the songs in the world, Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity plays and for some reason – this is the thing that pushes me over the edge from profoundly happy, into the medically-recognised state of bliss. Back in our room, we sleep with our curtains open. The sleepy lights of Kazbegi village look like a fallen constellation, above them a blanket of stars we can see from bed.

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Price per night from $96.00