Tbilisi, then the mountains.
Gergeti Trinity above the cloud, qvevri wine in Kakheti, sulphur baths under the old town balconies. What each tour is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
Seven days out that do the heavy lifting.
One mountain road, one wine road, one long morning through the balconied lanes above the Mtkvari. Book these seven and the rest of the week more or less arranges itself.
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One road does most of the work.
The Georgian Military Highway climbs out of Tbilisi past the towers of Ananuri and the green water of the Jinvali reservoir, crosses the Gudauri pass at 2,400 metres, and stops where Gergeti Trinity stands alone above Stepantsminda. Leave at seven and you are back for dinner.
Which road out of Tbilisi is yours?
Nearly every tour in the country starts in the capital and heads for one of three places: the mountains, the vineyards, or nowhere at all. Pick the direction that sounds like your week and the whole list behind it is priced and reviewed.
The mountain road
North to Kazbegi
10 hours 30 minutes (approx.) · from $29 · 2,009 reviews
Up the Military Highway past Ananuri, over the Gudauri pass, then a 4x4 track to the church on the shoulder with Kazbek behind it. Twelve hours door to door, an early alarm, and the photograph most people came for.
See the Kazbegi days →
The Kakheti road
East to Kakheti
10 hours (approx.) · from $29 · 2,774 reviews
Qvevri buried to the neck in a family cellar floor, ten pours before lunch, then Sighnaghi’s walls looking across the Alazani valley to the mountains. Eight thousand years of practice, and lunch is usually included.
See the wine days →
Walkable
Into Old Tbilisi
4 hours (approx.) · from $19 · 1,310 reviews
Carved balconies over the lanes, the brick domes of the sulphur baths, the cable car up to Narikala and shoti bread pulled off the wall of a tone oven on the way back down. No minibus, no alarm clock.
Walk the old town →
The capital gets better after eight.
Wine bars in the lanes below Betlemi, a supra table that keeps refilling, and a tamada who will not let anyone leave early. The sulphur baths stay open late and the funicular runs up Mtatsminda until midnight.
Wine is the whole point.
The grapes go into clay qvevri sunk in the floor, skins and all, and come out amber. Kakheti pours the bottles that get exported; Imereti and Kartli pour the ones that never leave the village.
Khinkali, khachapuri, a hot tone oven.
Fold the dumpling badly and the broth ends up on the table. Most classes start at a market, run through cheese bread and pleating practice, and finish with everything you made and somebody’s grandmother deciding whether it passed.
Mtskheta was the capital first.
Jvari watches from the ridge where the Aragvi runs into the Mtkvari, and Svetitskhoveli has been guarding the same relic since the fourth century. An hour west, a whole town sits carved into the rock at Uplistsikhe. Half a day out of Tbilisi, and the rest of the country starts making sense.
Tbilisi anchors it; the rest is a drive away.
Kazbegi is three hours north. Kakheti is two hours east. Kutaisi and the canyons are west, Batumi sits on the Black Sea, and Mtskheta is close enough to be a half day.
Cellars, ridgelines, or a long lunch.
Twelve ways to spend a day in this country, each one already priced and rated. Pick the shape first and the tour second.
Nearly all of it is a day trip from Tbilisi.
Three hours gets you to the Russian border and the church on the shoulder. Two gets you to a Kakheti cellar. Forty minutes gets you to the old capital. The minibus is usually part of the price.
Old town, mountain, wine.
You will not see the whole country in one trip. You can do the balconies, the Military Highway and a Kakheti cellar in three days, in that order, and leave wanting the fourth.
Day 1
Land and walk
Sulphur baths at Abanotubani, the cable car up to Narikala, lunch under a carved balcony and a wine bar you will come back to. Nothing starts early, which is useful on day one.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Take the mountain road
Out by seven up the Military Highway, Ananuri and the Jinvali reservoir on the way, Gergeti Trinity in the afternoon. Check the pass the night before and move this day to the clear one.
Plan the mountain day →
Day 3
Drive east for the wine
Sighnaghi on its ridge before the coaches arrive, a family cellar in the Alazani valley, more tastings than anyone planned, and a lunch that finishes the trip properly.
Plan the wine day →
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