must visit places tbilisi

Must-see attractions in Tbilisi

Narikala Fortress

Dominating the Old Town skyline, Narikala dates right back to the 4th century, when it was a Persian citadel. Most of the walls were built in the 8th…

National Gallery

For most visitors the highlight here is the hall of wonderful canvases by Georgia’s best-known painter Pirosmani (Niko Pirosmanashvili, 1862–1918),…

Tbilisi's most exhilarating ride is its massively popular cable car, which swings from the south end of Rike Park high over the Mtkvari River and the Old…

Georgian National Museum

The major highlight of the impressive national museum is the basement Archaeological Treasury, displaying a wealth of pre-Christian gold, silver and…

Metekhi Church

The landmark Metekhi Church, and the 1960s equestrian statue of King Vakhtang Gorgasali beside it, occupy the strategic rocky outcrop above the Metekhi…

The ride up Mt Mtatsminda on the city's funicular is spectacular, as are the views from the top – and there are a couple of great places to eat or drink,…

Anchiskhati Basilica

Tbilisi’s oldest surviving church is perhaps its loveliest. Built by King Gorgasali’s son Dachi in the 6th century, it's a three-nave basilica whose…

Kartlis Deda

This 20m-tall aluminium symbol of Tbilisi holds a sword in one hand and a cup of wine in the other – a classic metaphor for the Georgian character, warmly…

Tsminda Sameba Cathedral

The biggest symbol of the Georgian Orthodox Church's post-Soviet revival towers on Elia Hill above Avlabari. Tsminda Sameba, unmissable by night and day,…

Abanotubani

The brick domes rising here are the roofs of subterranean bathhouses, the Abanotubani. Alexanders Dumas and Pushkin both bathed in these sulphurous waters…

Parliament Building

The impressive high-arched Parliament building has seen many momentous events, including the deaths of 19 Georgian hunger strikers at the hands of Soviet…

Open-Air Museum of Ethnography

This collection of traditional, mostly wooden houses, from all around Georgia, is spread over a wooded hillside with good views, and makes for an…

MOMA Tbilisi

This beautiful conversion of the former Tbilisi Cadet Corps building has been given over to displays of work by the museum's founder, Zurab Tsereteli, the…

Sioni Cathedral

Sioni was originally built in the 6th and 7th centuries, but has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, and what you see today is mainly 13th century. It…

Project ArtBeat

This gallery is Georgia's leading contemporary art space, nurturing local talent and giving shows to up-and-coming artists. Pop in to see what's currently…

Botanical Gardens

It’s easy to wander for a couple of hours in these tree-filled and waterfall-dotted gardens, which stretch more than a kilometre up the valley behind the…

Concert Hall & Exhibition Centre

The two large tubular metallic structures at the north end of Rike Park were commissioned from Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas during the…

Kashveti Church

The first church on this site is supposed to have been built in the 6th century by Davit Gareja, one of the ascetic ‘Syrian fathers’ who returned from the…

Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Art

This museum contains a vast wealth of icons, crosses and jewellery from all over Georgia. Sadly, it can only be entered with a guide (English available,…

This green expanse along the eastern riverbank, with its winding paths, pools and fountains, is joined to the west side of the Mtkvari by the Bridge of…

Residence of Bidzina Ivanishvili

The monstrous residence of Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia's richest man, former prime minister and éminence grise on the political scene, looms over the…

Presidential Palace

Georgia’s presidential palace, which is not open to visitors, was a Saakashvili-era prestige project that opened in 2009. Its ultraclassical portico is…

Armenian Cathedral of St George

This large cathedral just above Meidan was founded in 1251, though the current structure dates mainly from the 18th century. Its interior has colourful…

Tbilisi History Museum

The eclectic exhibits here, housed in an old caravanserai, range from models and photos to high-society and folk costumes from the 19th century, and…

Bridge of Peace

The Bridge of Peace, a rather incongruously modern glass-and-steel footbridge over the Mtkvari with a totally unnecessary roof, was designed by Italian…

On the short walk up to the Botanical Gardens you pass the only mosque in Tbilisi that survived Lavrenty Beria’s purges of the 1930s. It's a red-brick…

Public Service Hall

Nicknamed the Umbrellas, this building by Italian Massimiliano Fuksas is the biggest of a dozen Public Service Halls opened in new, contemporary buildings…

Mtatsminda Park

The amusement park on top of Mt Mtatsminda will interest children, but can also be a lot of fun for adults (check out the enormous Ferris wheel) and the…

Clock Tower

One of old Tbilisi's most emblematic structures is also one of its newest, a higgledy-piggledy clock tower, built by puppet master Rezo Gabriadze during a…

Mtatsminda Pantheon

The national pantheon sits on the slopes of Mt Mtatsminda, on the route of a walking path down from Mtatsminda Park, and is the site of burial for many…

In tsarist times Meidan was the site of Tbilisi’s bustling main bazaar. Today it's busy with traffic but opens to the Metekhi Bridge over the Mtkvari –…

Jvaris Mama Church

Little Jvaris Mama stands on a site where a church has stood since the 5th century. The current incarnation dates from the 16th century and its interior…

Freedom Square

This busy traffic nexus was Lenin Sq in Soviet times. Georgia’s last Lenin statue, toppled in 1990, stood where the golden St George (a gift to the city…

Shahtakhti Fortress

The ruined Shahtakht Fortress on the Sololaki Ridge once housed an Arab observatory.

Residence of the Catholicos-Patriarch

Opposite the small and leafy park Erekle II moedani, high walls hide the residence of the Catholicos-Patriarch, head of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Norasheni Church

The large Armenian Norasheni Church, dating from 1793, has been long disused but tentative (and still incomplete) renovations began in 2015.

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