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Tips & Traps
Insider advice from Local Friends and travelers. What to do, and what to avoid, city by city.
- TipA place or a move worth it
- TrapWhat to avoid, and how
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Insider advice from Local Friends and travelers. What to do, and what to avoid, city by city.
Join RALF to share your own tips and traps
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Stamba in the Vera district fills a 1930s Soviet printing house that produced a state newspaper, and the original presses and concrete columns were kept inside a striking atrium. Non-guests can walk in for coffee, visit the gallery and browse the shop. It is a short walk from Rustaveli Avenue, which makes Vera a handy…
Each May, usually on the second Saturday, Georgian winemakers pour their young wines in Mtatsminda Park and open their qvevri clay vessels at a ceremony. Entry is free. Branded glasses are sold near the funicular building and at the main square fountain, or bring your own. Go early, before the afternoon crowd, and…
Polyphonic chant is still part of church life in Georgia, and Sunday morning liturgy, usually starting around ten, is where visitors hear it best. The small Anchiskhati Basilica in Old Tbilisi is known for its resident choir and strong acoustics. Arrive a little before the start, stand quietly at the back and treat it…
Beside the Gabriadze Marionette Theatre on Ioane Shavteli Street in the old town, the clock tower has an angel who comes out of painted doors every hour to ring a bell. Inside, a small puppet show called Circle of Life runs twice a day. One guide gives noon as a usual time, so arrive a few minutes early and check the…
Sixteen tall bronze and copper columns with bas-reliefs stand on a hill above the Tbilisi Sea reservoir, free to enter and open around the clock. Go at sunset or early morning when it is quiet and the light is soft. Order a Bolt, or take metro line 1 to Ghrmaghele and bus 60, then walk the last 500 meters. Wind can be…
A cable car runs about 1,140 meters from Vake Park to Turtle Lake in roughly six minutes, and its gondolas have hooks for bikes. Tap your Metromoney card to board. Up top, a lakeside path of just over a kilometer suits a slow walk or a jog, and trails continue higher into the woods for views over the city. Locals come…
Enter the National Botanical Garden through the gate in the southern wall of Narikala Fortress and walk downhill to the lower entrance on Botanicheskaya Street. The route passes viewpoints, the rose and Japanese gardens and the Legvtakhevi waterfall, and ends a few minutes from the sulfur baths. Go in the morning…
Most white taxis in Tbilisi have no meter, so the fare is agreed up front, and drivers who approach you inside the arrivals terminal often quote far above what an app shows. Locals order a Bolt once they are outside, check the plate before getting in and keep payment inside the app. If a driver says the app price is…
The Metromoney card that covers the metro, buses and the cable cars to Narikala and Turtle Lake is not valid on the Mtatsminda funicular or the Mtatsminda cable car. Those run on a separate Mtatsminda Park card, which you buy at the funicular station and which also pays for rides inside the park. Buy it at the bottom…
The open-air Dry Bridge market by the river sells Soviet cameras, medals, porcelain, paintings and bric-a-brac, and opening prices for visitors often start high. Locals haggle politely, name a lower round figure and walk on if it does not move. Bring small lari notes because stalls rarely take cards, and arrive before…
Dezerter Bazaar, the sprawling market beside the central railway station, is where Tbilisi cooks buy spices, ajika, pickles, cheese and seasonal produce. Take the metro to Station Square, walk one block west and go in the morning, when the stalls are full and the aisles are busiest. Taste before you buy and ask…
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