Gelendzhik wraps itself around one of the best natural bays on the Russian Black Sea, a nearly closed bowl with a long spit across its mouth, and it has used that gift to become one of the country's biggest summer resorts. The city has just over fifty thousand permanent residents and many times that number in July, which tells you most of what you need to know about parking and traffic. Divnomorskoye lies a few kilometres to the southeast and Kabardinka a little further the other way toward Novorossiysk.
Riding in is easy and pleasant, riding around is slow. The highway from Novorossiysk crosses low, dry hills with views opening over the bay, and from the south you come over wooded headlands before the city appears below you. Inside town you are on a seafront promenade, plane trees, ice-cream queues and roads that were never meant to carry this many cars. If you want the corners, they are outside: the coast roads and the climbs into the hills behind, where the surface is generally decent and the bends tighten gently. Early morning is the right hour, before the beach crowds wake up.
Gelendzhik was a fortress before it was a resort. The Russian military founded it in the 1830s as part of the line along this coast, during the long Caucasian war, and for decades it was a small garrison town. The change came in the Soviet period, when sanatoria and holiday houses multiplied along the shore, and the fashion has never really left. The seafront today is polished and busy, but it is still a place where families on a fortnight's holiday stroll slowly past grilled fish and fruit stalls.
The landscape behind the city is worth knowing. The hills here are dry compared with the lush coast further south, covered in juniper and oak scrub, and the air carries a distinct herbal smell on hot days. The coast is also a famous region for wine, and the grapes you pass on the slopes are the reason the coastal hills around Abrau-Dyurso, a short ride west, have such a name for sparkling wine.
For practical purposes, Gelendzhik has everything: fuel, food at every price, accommodation, and mechanics if something goes wrong. It is the sensible place to eat properly and plan the next day. Just do not expect solitude between June and September.