Tbilisi: The Caucasus City That Shocks Every Visitor

Tbilisi's Old Town (Dzveli Tbilisi) is the defining Tbilisi experience — a dense neighborhood of winding lanes, 6th-century churches, 17th-century caravanserais, and 19th-century Art Nouveau wooden balconies overhung with wisteria and grapevines. Anchiskhati Basilica (6th century, the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi), Sioni Cathedral (5th century, rebuilt multiple times, housing the grapevine cross of Saint Nino), Shardeni Street (the atmospheric restaurant and café lane), and the hidden courtyard houses (filled with pomegranate trees and grapevines climbing the wooden galleries) form the essential Old Town circuit. The cable car to Narikala Fortress runs from Rike Park on the riverbank — from the fortress walls, the entire Old Town panorama spreads below.

The Abanotubani sulfur baths — the neighborhood of steam-domed bathhouses in the ravine below Narikala where the natural sulfur springs have been used since at least the 5th century — are Tbilisi's most ancient and most specifically local experience. The external domes of the Chreli Abano (also known as Royal Bath, dating to the 17th century) with its mosaic-tiled facade are the most photographed. Private bath rooms (komnata) cost approximately 10 to 20 GEL per hour for a private room, with an additional fee for a scrub (kisa) massage that leaves the skin extraordinary. The water smells of sulfur but the effect on the body is remarkable. Alexander Pushkin, Alexandre Dumas, and Mikhail Lermontov all wrote about Tbilisi's baths.

Kazbegi (officially Stepantsminda) is a mountain village 3 hours north of Tbilisi via the Georgian Military Highway — one of the most dramatic mountain roads in the Caucasus, climbing through the Aragvi River gorge past the medieval Ananuri Castle complex and the Gudauri ski resort before descending into the Kazbegi valley at 1,740 meters altitude. The Gergeti Trinity Church (14th century) on its hilltop at 2,170 meters with Mount Kazbek (5,047 meters, glacier-capped) directly behind it is the most photographed landscape in Georgia. The hike from Kazbegi village takes approximately 1.5 hours uphill. Kazbegi is the most popular day trip from Tbilisi (592,000 visitors in 2025, up 16 percent).

The Kakheti wine region — 2 hours east of Tbilisi in the Alazani Valley, bordered by the Greater Caucasus to the north — is Georgia's wine heartland, home to 500 indigenous grape varieties and 8,000 years of unbroken winemaking tradition. The qvevri (large clay amphora buried underground for fermentation and aging) method is UNESCO-inscribed. The main wine towns of Telavi, Sighnaghi (a hilltop town with a Tuscan-like quality, surrounded by intact 18th-century walls), and Kvareli anchor a wine tourism circuit that generated $340 million in 2025.

Georgian cuisine is one of the great undiscovered food cultures of Europe — a kitchen shaped by the country's position on the ancient Silk Road, accumulating influences from Persia, Ottoman Turkey, Russia, and Armenia while producing dishes with a flavor profile entirely its own. The combination of walnuts, pomegranate, herbs (tarragon, fenugreek, blue fenugreek), tkemali plum sauce, and adjika chili paste creates a palette of flavors that rewards weeks of exploration.

Khinkali are Georgia's national dumpling — large pleated pouches of meat (traditionally pork and beef, or lamb and herbs) in broth, eaten by holding the top knot, biting a small hole, drinking the broth, then eating the filling. The correct technique is everything. Khachapuri is Georgia's celebrated cheese bread — the Adjarian version (khachapuri adjaruli) is a boat-shaped bread with molten sulguni cheese, butter, and a raw egg that you break and stir into the cheese. Both are eaten as shared table dishes at every Georgian meal. A traditional supra (feast) with tamada (toastmaster) leading formal toasts in a sequence of prescribed sentiments is the highest expression of Georgian hospitality.

Georgian natural wine from qvevri clay vessels is arguably the world's most interesting wine story — orange wines (white grapes fermented on their skins in buried clay amphorae for months) of extraordinary amber color and tannin structure that have no equivalent anywhere in conventional wine production. Vino Underground on Galaktion Tabidze Street is the finest natural wine bar in Tbilisi — dozens of small-producer qvevri wines by the glass for $1 to $3. Chacha (grape distillate, similar to grappa, approximately 60 percent alcohol) is the essential Georgian spirit.