Today is my last full day in Tbilisi and I have a suspicion I’m going to want to come back. I’ve done a lot, including quite a lot I wouldn’t or couldn’t have done on my own but there’s also quite a bit I haven’t done – the balloon, a boat trip, Narikala Fortress and anything outside of Old Town.

Anyway. Conference today started with a networking breakfast, which meant those few people who were capable of being up before 10am sitting awkwardly around eating croissants and some mysterious pastry with something mysterious on top. Session one was Travel Writing Masterclass which was more about pitching to publications and research trips. Session two was SEO – getting Google to notice the things you write, and that mostly went some way over my head. Session three was pretty much how to take photos and videos of yourself. I dithered over session four – do I do the SEO Q&A (nope, not after the morning SEO session), the practical solo photo-taking (… maybe not?) or the “What next?” about how to turn the ideas from the weekend into reality (that’s the one I went for). I had lunch in the upstairs restaurant, got some bread, requested some butter and ran outside to take a few photos of the view.

The day finished with two panels – the first on monetisation, which was mostly about putting accommodation affiliate links in the description box of your YouTube videos and the second was on creativity, which was a YouTuber and a TikToker talking about what you do when things go wrong or right, how you film things while also enjoying the trip and so on.

Then I came home, declining the gala dinner and big finish in favour of going to the sulphur bath. No 5 had a room for one at 9.30 so I paid my deposit, came home, ate some bread & cheese and packed. In half an hour or so, I’ll get up and go back down to town.

I was in room 4 and it had its good points and its bad ones. The bad ones were the squat toilet, the high edge of the bath, the heat of the bath and the atmosphere of being in a run-down school toilet. On the other hand, it was 70 GEL instead of 100/110, it had spectacular ceiings in both the changing room and the bath room, there was easily double the space there was in Chreli Abano, the lighting was bright – maybe over-bright – and the domed ceilings let in some fresh air – which meant they also let in traffic noise. I think of the three, I like the Royal Baths the best.

I came home just in time to catch the nightly fireworks at Narikala – I’ve heard them but never yet got up and gone to see. Probably a good thing, since my room doesn’t face Narikala. Tbilisi by night is pretty.