Tbilisi

Tbilisi fills a narrow valley where the Mtkvari river, the Kura, cuts between steep hills. The old town sits below the walls of Narikala, around the brick domes of bathhouses fed by hot sulphur springs, with courtyard houses and carved wooden balconies running up the slopes; the 19th-century city spreads north along Rustaveli Avenue. The food and wine are reason enough to come, prices are low, and Mtskheta, the old capital, is half an hour away.

This guide covers when to go, where to stay, what to see, a four-day route built from real opening hours and walking times, a walk through the old town, a day in Mtskheta, what to eat and drink, and the history, writers and customs that make the city make sense.

1. 01

   Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia

   A fortress has stood on the ridge above the springs since the 4th century; Arabs, David the Builder and later kings enlarged it, and most of the walls you see are from the 16th and 17th centuries. Walk the ramparts for the view over the bath domes and the river, then follow the ridge west to the Mother of Georgia, a 20-meter aluminum figure from 1958 holding a bowl of wine for friends and a sword for enemies.

   Ride the cable car up from Rike Park across the river and walk down through the old town, or climb from the baths in about 15 minutes.

   Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0
2. 02

   The sulphur baths of Abanotubani

   The city grew up around these springs, and its name comes from tbili, warm. The bathhouses sit half underground beneath brick domes, fed by sulphurous water from the rock. Most rent private rooms by the hour, with a hot pool, a cold plunge and a kisi, a hard scrub by an attendant; a few keep public halls, separate for men and women. Chreli Abano, the Orbeliani baths, has the tiled front.

   Book a private room for an evening or a weekend, and bring cash for the scrub and flip-flops for the wet floors.

   Photo: Marcin Konsek, CC BY-SA 4.0
3. 03

   Metekhi and Vakhtang Gorgasali

   Metekhi Church stands on the cliff across the river from the baths, built by King Demetre II around 1278 to 1284 where the royal palace once stood; under Russian rule it served as barracks, and a prison stood beside it until 1938. Beside it rides Vakhtang Gorgasali, the king who by legend founded the city, in a bronze statue put up in 1961. From the terrace, the old town, the baths and the fortress spread out across the water.

   Come at dusk, when the church and the statue are lit and the fortress walls glow across the river.

   Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0
4. 04

   The Bridge of Peace and Rike Park

   Since 2010 the Bridge of Peace, a curving canopy of steel and glass designed by Michele De Lucchi, has carried walkers over the Mtkvari from the old town to Rike Park; after dark its roof lights up with thousands of LEDs. Rike Park, on the left bank, has lawns and paths along the river and the lower station of the cable car up to Narikala.

   Cross the bridge from the old town, then ride the cable car up to the fortress.

   Photo: falco, CC0
5. 05

   The Georgian National Museum

   In the basement of the main museum on Rustaveli Avenue, the Archaeological Treasury shows gold, silver and jewels from Georgian burials going back to the 3rd millennium BC, above all the finely worked gold of ancient Colchis. The museum also shows the skulls of early humans found at Dmanisi, about 1.8 million years old, and a hall on Georgia in the Soviet period, from 1921 to 1991.

   Closed on Mondays. Give the Treasury an hour on its own.

   Photo: Jonathan Cardy, CC BY-SA 3.0
6. 06

   The Holy Trinity Cathedral

   Tbilisi’s main cathedral, known as Sameba, stands on Elia Hill above Avlabari, across the river from the old town. Built between 1995 and 2004, it is one of the tallest Orthodox cathedrals in the world, and its gilded cross can be seen from much of the city. The services are sung, and visitors are welcome if they dress for church.

   Cover shoulders and knees; women cover their hair. Walk up from Avlabari metro in about 10 minutes.

   Photo: Alexxx1979, CC BY-SA 4.0
7. 07

   Mtatsminda

   The holy mountain above the city. A funicular first built in 1905 climbs from Chonkadze Street, stopping halfway at the Pantheon around St. David’s church, where many of Georgia’s great writers are buried, and ends at an amusement park with a 65-meter big wheel and the widest view in Tbilisi. A cable car from Rustaveli Avenue, on the line closed after an accident in 1990, reopened in 2024.

   Go up an hour before sunset and come down after dark, when the city lights come on.

   Photo: Kober, CC BY-SA 4.0
8. 08

   The Dry Bridge market

   Every day, stalls spread over the Dry Bridge and the little park beside it: Soviet badges and cameras, samovars, carpets, old enamel signs, daggers and paintings. The bridge was built between 1848 and 1851 over a branch of the Mtkvari that later dried up, which gave it its name.

   Busiest at weekends. Bargain, politely.

   Photo: Alexkom000, CC BY 4.0

Three hidden gems

32 of Tbilisi’s best-loved sights, routed into 4 days by the same engine that plans every SwipeSights trip: nearby stops share a day, walks stay short, and each stop is timed around its opening hours.

Pick the neighborhood first, then the hotel. Each link opens a map of places to stay around it.

Hotel links go to Stay22. If you book, we may earn a commission, at no cost to you.

Georgian food is generous and built for sharing: walnuts, garlic and pomegranate, cheese breads, grilled meat and a plate of fresh herbs on every table. Dishes arrive as they are ready and meals run long, and a supra, a feast led by a tamada, a toastmaster, can last all evening.

Khinkali

Pleated dumplings of spiced meat and broth, eaten by hand: hold the knot, bite, sip the juice, and leave the knot on the plate.

Photo: Sandra C from Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0

Adjaruli khachapuri

The boat-shaped cheese bread from Adjara, with an egg yolk and butter to stir in. Imeruli, a round cheese bread, is the everyday kind.

Photo: Eugene Krasnaok, CC BY 4.0

Badrijani nigvzit

Fried eggplant rolled around a walnut and garlic paste, topped with pomegranate seeds.

Photo: Helen Owl, CC BY-SA 4.0

Pkhali

Spinach, beetroot or other greens minced with walnuts, garlic and herbs and shaped into balls.

Photo: Eraevsky, CC BY-SA 4.0

Mtsvadi

Pork or veal grilled on skewers, traditionally over vine cuttings, with raw onion and tkemali, a sour plum sauce.

Photo: Alandislands, CC BY-SA 4.0

Lobio

Red beans stewed with herbs and spices in a clay pot, eaten with mchadi, a dense cornbread, and pickles.

Photo: Georgian Recipes at Georgia About, CC BY 3.0

Chakapuli

Lamb or veal stewed with tarragon, white wine and sour green plums, a dish of spring.

Photo: Nickispeaki (original image); reprocessed by Off-shell, CC BY-SA 4.0

Churchkhela

Walnuts threaded on a string and dipped again and again in thickened grape juice, sold in bunches at every market.

Photo: Lessormore, CC BY 4.0

Eat khinkali in a sakhinkle, a khinkali house, and everything else in the restaurants of Sololaki, the old town and Aghmashenebeli Avenue. The wine bars of Sololaki and the old town pour natural qvevri wine by the glass. Dezerter Bazaar, near the central station, is the big food market: spices, cheese, pickles and churchkhela.

Alexander Griboyedov

1795 to 1829

The author of Woe from Wit, Russia’s great verse comedy, served as a diplomat in Tiflis and married Nino Chavchavadze, the teenage daughter of the Georgian poet Alexander Chavchavadze, in Sioni Cathedral in August 1828. Months later he was killed by a mob at the Russian embassy in Tehran. Nino buried him, as he had asked, at St. David’s church on Mtatsminda, and never remarried. Her lines are cut into his tomb: “Your mind and your deeds are immortal in Russian memory; but why did my love outlive you?”

Alexander Pushkin

1799 to 1837

Pushkin reached Tiflis on his 30th birthday in 1829, on his way to the war with Turkey, meant to stay two days and stayed two weeks, bathing in the sulphur baths and feasting with Georgian friends. He described it in A Journey to Arzrum (1836). On the road south he met an ox cart coming from Tehran and asked what it carried; the drivers answered “Griboyed.” It was his friend’s body, on its way to Tiflis.

Mikhail Lermontov

1814 to 1841

Exiled to the Caucasus in 1837 for his poem on Pushkin’s death, Lermontov spent time in Tiflis among the Georgian circle of Alexander Chavchavadze and painted the city. Georgia became the setting of his long poems The Novice, about a young monk at Mtskheta, and The Demon, finished in 1839 and banned for years, then first printed abroad in 1856.

Nikoloz Baratashvili

1817 to 1845

Born in Tiflis, the great poet of Georgian Romanticism wrote Dusk on Mtatsminda while still a teenager, and Merani, in which a rider spurs his winged horse on regardless of fate, in 1842. He worked as a clerk and died of malaria in Ganja at 27. His reburial in Tbilisi in 1893 became a national event, and since 1938 he has lain in the Pantheon on Mtatsminda.

And lo! the beauties of another scene

Before his deadened gaze expand:

Afar in spreading folds of budding green

The vales of Georgia may be scann’d,

A joyous stately tract of land!

Mikhail Lermontov, The Demon (1839), First Canto, translated by Alexander Condie Stephen (1875)