Batumi, Kobuleti or Ureki: which Black Sea resort suits you

Batumi is not a beach resort in the Mediterranean sense; it is Adjara's capital, a working city of towers, boulevards and botanical gardens, with a seafront attached. That is its strength. There are restaurants worth travelling for, museums, a genuine old town, a long landscaped promenade and nightlife that runs late. If rain arrives, there is a great deal to do that is not the beach.

It is also the busiest and the most expensive of the three in season, the beach is pebble rather than sand, and the seafront in August is not a quiet place. Choose Batumi if you want a holiday with things in it. Do not choose it expecting a sleepy shore.

Kobuleti runs as a single strip several kilometres long, parallel to the sea, backed by pines. It is low-rise, noticeably cheaper than Batumi, and the evening ends earlier. Families tend to prefer it: the entry to the water is shallow, the pace is slow, and the promenade in the evening is the main event.

The practical quirk is that the town's length makes an address nearly useless — the same street name appears at both ends. A map pin saves a slow crawl along the seafront. Kolkheti National Park and the Ispani peat bogs sit on its northern edge if you want a morning that is not the beach.

Ureki is the closest beach to Kutaisi Airport and the most distinctly Georgian of the three. Its sand is dark because it contains magnetite, and the local reputation for therapeutic benefit is what fills the guesthouses each July and August. The crowd is domestic rather than international, the accommodation is small guesthouses rather than hotels, and the resort is small enough to walk.

The dark sand heats quickly in full sun, which is worth knowing with small children. And Ureki is the most seasonal of the three by some margin: outside roughly late June to early September, much of it closes and the town is close to empty.

None of them is a fine-sand Mediterranean beach, and visitors who arrive expecting one are reliably disappointed. The Georgian Black Sea coast is pebble or coarse dark sand, the water is clean and cool, and the season is short — roughly late June to early September for swimming, with everything either side quieter, cheaper and often shut.

They also sit within about 30 km of each other on one road, which is the most useful fact here. Staying in one and visiting another is a short drive rather than an expedition, so the choice matters less than it appears. Shekvetili, with its amusement park and dendrological park, sits between Ureki and Kobuleti and works as a day out from any of them.