Tbilisi City Highlights Guided Walking Tour with Cable Car Ride

Metekhi Church and the statue of the founder of Tbilisi

The walk begins a short distance from Avlabari metro station at Metekhi, a rocky cliff above the Mtkvari river that was the first royal residence of Tbilisi. The church that stands on it, Metekhi Church of the Virgin, was built in the late thirteenth century on the site of earlier churches and has served as a royal chapel, a barracks, a prison and a theatre before returning to worship in the 1980s. Beside it the bronze equestrian statue of King Vakhtang Gorgasali, the fifth-century ruler who founded Tbilisi, looks out over the city he chose, with the sulphur baths and Narikala Fortress straight ahead across the water.

Your guide spends about twenty minutes here telling the founding legend of the hot springs and pointing out the full layout of old Tbilisi from above, which makes the rest of the Tbilisi city tour easier to follow. This is the first and one of the best photo stops of the morning.

Rike Park, Europe Square and the Bridge of Peace

Down the hill from Metekhi, Rike Park spreads along the left bank of the river as a landscaped promenade with fountains, a giant chess board and the twin tubular halls of a concert complex that mark the modern side of the city. Europe Square at its edge connects to the Avlabari district, and from the park the Bridge of Peace crosses the Mtkvari to the old town: a curved pedestrian bridge of glass and steel opened in 2010, about 150 metres long, whose canopy is lit every evening by thousands of lights. The contrast between this bridge and the brick domes and wooden balconies on the far bank is the image of Tbilisi that most visitors remember.

The tour pauses here for photos and for the story of the river-front rebuilding, then goes to the lower station of the cable car, which stands inside Rike Park itself. Allow about fifteen minutes for the park, the square and the bridge together.

Cable car to the Mother of Georgia and Narikala Fortress

The Tbilisi cable car leaves Rike Park and glides over the river and the old town in about two minutes, landing on the ridge of Sololaki hill next to the Mother of Georgia. This aluminium figure of a woman in national dress, twenty metres tall and raised in 1958 for the city's 1,500th anniversary, holds a bowl in one hand for friends and a sword in the other for enemies, which is how Georgians like to explain their hospitality. A few minutes along the ridge rise the walls of Narikala Fortress, a citadel begun in the fourth century, enlarged under Arab rule and ruined by an earthquake in the nineteenth century; the small church of St Nicholas inside was rebuilt in the 1990s.

The ride and the ridge are included, and the view from Narikala over the roofs, the river and the Caucasus foothills is the reason people come. The cable car does not run in strong wind; on those days the guide adapts the route on foot.

Anchiskhati Basilica, the Clock Tower and Sioni Cathedral

Back at river level, the lanes of the old town hold three of the most important buildings in Georgian church history within a few hundred metres. Anchiskhati Basilica, built in the sixth century, is the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi, a plain three-nave basilica of brick and stone where polyphonic singing still fills Sunday services. Next to it leans the Clock Tower, a deliberately crooked tower built in 2010 beside a puppet theatre, where a small angel strikes the bell on the hour and a short mechanical show plays at midday and in the evening. A short walk on is Sioni Cathedral, founded in the sixth and seventh centuries and rebuilt many times, the seat of the Georgian Orthodox Church until 2004, which keeps the grapevine cross of St Nino, the saint who brought Christianity to Georgia.

The guide allows about ten minutes at each, plus a glance at the Patriarchate of Georgia beside the cathedral. Head coverings for women are available at the doors.

Bakery break, Tamada sculpture and Shardeni Street

Halfway through the walk the group stops for twenty minutes at a local bakery for a traditional Georgian pie, usually a khachapuri filled with salted cheese or a lobiani filled with spiced beans, baked in a round oven and served hot, with a glass of Georgian lemonade in flavours such as pear or tarragon. It is a real break rather than a tasting and keeps energy up for the second half of the route. From the bakery the walk continues to the bronze Tamada, a small seated figure raising a drinking horn that copies a statuette found in western Georgia and dating from the seventh century BC; locals rub its horn for luck, and it is one of the most photographed objects in the old town.

Shardeni Street, the pedestrian lane beside it, is lined with cafes, galleries and carpet shops and is the heart of the restored old town. The guide walks you through it in about five minutes, pointing out where to return in the evening.

Abanotubani sulphur baths, the Bridge of Love and Leghvtakhevi Waterfall

Abanotubani is the bath district at the foot of Narikala where Tbilisi began: the city's name comes from the Georgian word for warm, after the hot sulphur springs that rise here. The bathhouses are sunk into the ground and show only their brick domes and skylights at street level, except for the Orbeliani bath with its blue-tiled facade and minaret-like towers. Behind the baths the Leghvtakhevi gorge, the Fig Ravine, cuts into the hill, crossed by the small Bridge of Love hung with padlocks and ending at the Leghvtakhevi Waterfall, a cascade that drops from the cliffs just a few minutes from the busiest streets of the old town.

The guide explains how the baths work and which are open to visitors if you want to return for a soak, then leads the group along the gorge walkway to the waterfall for the last photo stop. The walk ends nearby at Meidan Bazaar, an underground souvenir market on Meidan square, after about four hours.