A 48-Hour Itinerary to Tbilisi: Sulfur Baths, Qvevri Wine and Legendary Caucasus Hospitality
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- Tbilisi packs centuries of history, inventive design and legendary hospitality into a walkable Caucasus capital where sulfur baths, balconied streets and contemporary art coexist.
- A two-day itinerary moves from Old Town churches and Narikala Fortress to qvevri wines, refined Georgian cooking, flea markets and creative courtyards.
- Stay in repurposed Soviet landmarks, ride the funicular for sweeping city views and discover why Tbilisi’s food and wine scene is gaining global attention.
I never pass up a chance to go back to Tbilisi, whether it’s for work or a weekend reset. It’s the people — small talk with a random Georgian can turn into an intellectual discussion on a riverside veranda at a winery — and it’s a city that feels vivid and modern without losing its edges: the well-preserved, one-of-a-kind architecture of the old city a few streets from wine bars, sulfur bathhouses sharing a hillside with rooftop lounges.
It’s also one of the best walking cities I know. The Old Town’s balconied wooden houses lean into narrow, cobbled streets that open onto squares packed with galleries, bookshops, ceramics stalls and family-run wine shops — all backdropped by the Caucasus Mountains.. And the food alone deserves a trip: Georgian cuisine is quietly conquering menus from Bologna to Brooklyn, and it’s still underrated for how good it actually is.
With so much going for it, you won’t leave Tbilisi without madloba, khinkali and chacha burned into your memory. Two days is enough for a proper weekend escape into a city that’s as atmospheric as it is modern.
DAY 1: Old Town Wanders, Sulfur Baths and a Fortress View
10:00 AM: Kikliko for a Modern Take on Georgian Breakfast
Start the day at Kikliko, tucked into Vera on Mtskheta Street. It’s one of Tbilisi’s first real breakfast spots, open since 2018 when 8 a.m. service was still a novelty in a city that traditionally eats late. The menu is built around its namesake dish: eggy bread pan-crisped like French toast, piled savory with cheese, ham and mushrooms, or finished sweet with caramel and almonds.
Round it out with a cottage cheese pancake or a plate of eggs and a coffee, and settle into the small terrace out front — this is a place built for a slow, proper morning before the day’s walking starts.
11:30 a.m.: Explore Old Tbilisi
Walk off breakfast through the Old Town’s core. Start at Freedom Square, the city’s central meeting point, then cut through Pushkin Park before reaching Orbeliani Square, where the flower market spills onto the sidewalk with various shopping stops. Visit Anchiskhati Basilica — Tbilisi’s oldest surviving church, standing since the 6th century — before stopping at the Clock Tower, the leaning, storybook structure built by artist Rezo Gabriadze next to his puppet theater; at noon a tiny puppet show plays out from a door in its side.
From there, head toward the Kura River and cross the Bridge of Peace, the glass-and-steel pedestrian bridge that splits opinion among locals, but delivers one of the best views in the city — Narikala Fortress on the cliff, the sulfur bathhouse domes below it, Old Town rooftops behind you. Between the 6th-century church and the 2010 glass bridge, this stretch is the perfect example of Tbilisi’s diverse architecture in miniature before the walk climbs higher toward the fortress.
2 p.m.: Lunch at Shavi Lomi
Shavi Lomi is a name on nearly every serious food guide to the city. Set inside an old house with a candlelit courtyard, chef Meriko Gubeladze revives Georgian recipes that have flattened out during the decades. Order the lobio, a bean stew bubbling in a clay pot; badrijani nigvzit, eggplant rolled around walnut paste; the barbequed pork is very tender, accompanied by grilled young potatoes and a well-matched tkemali sauce. Ask for a glass of amber qvevri wine.
4 p.m.: Sulfur Baths (Abanotubani)
No trip to Tbilisi is complete without the sulfur baths — book a private room for an hour in one of Abanotubani’s domed bathhouses, fed by natural hot springs that give the neighborhood its name. Afterward, walk a short loop past Leghvtakhevi Waterfall and up into Fig Gorge, a narrow pocket of green right behind the bath district that most visitors walk straight past.
6 p.m.: Narikala Fortress via Cable Car
From Rike Park, take the cable car up to Narikala Fortress. It’s a quick ride that delivers one of the best views in the city, with the Old Town’s rooftops, the Kura River and the sulfur bath domes spread out below. Time it for golden hour, when the light hits the fortress walls and the whole valley turns gold.
Skip the cable car back down and walk instead, winding slowly through the narrow, balconied streets of Betlemi, where a handful of small cafes with terraces make for perfect short stops — grab a coffee, sit for a few minutes, and take in the city before continuing down.
8 p.m.: Dinner at Barbarestan
Cap the night at Barbarestan, Tbilisi’s signature fine-dining table. The family that runs it found a cookbook from 1874, written by Barbare Jorjadze — a Georgian princess, feminist and one of the country’s earliest culinary writers — at the Dry Bridge flea market, and built the entire menu around reviving her recipes. The room matches the concept: lace tablecloths, taper candles, antique crockery, a stone-vaulted wine cellar downstairs. Order whatever seasonal dish the kitchen has pulled from the book that month, and let the staff walk you through one of Georgia’s best wine lists that’s deep on qvevri whites and ambers you won’t find outside the country.
10:30 p.m.: Cocktails at 41° Art of Drink
Close out the night in Sololaki, behind a basement door marked “41°.” 41° Art of Drinks is Tbilisi’s original speakeasy with a handwritten, ever-changing cocktail menu built around local ingredients, mixed by bartenders who tailor each drink on the spot.
Stay: Stamba Hotel
Stay at Stamba, a former Soviet printing house turned design hotel in the Vera district, all raw concrete and brass fixtures wrapped around a leafy, glass-roofed atrium. It’s a five-minute walk from Rustaveli Avenue and keeps the city’s ideology of finding new life in its old buildings.
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DAY 2: Creative Courtyards, Flea Markets and Natural Wine
9:30 a.m.: Coffee at Coffee LAB or Linville
Start the day with a choice: Coffee LAB for a properly pulled espresso and a slice of carrot cake in a clean, work-friendly space; or Café Linville, a wobbly-staircase, vintage-stuffed apartment cafe in the Old Town that looks like a well-loved grandmother’s living room, chandeliers and all, with a small balcony over Kote Apkhazi Street.
10:30 AM — Fabrika
Even if you’re not staying there, walk into Fabrika — a former Soviet sewing factory in Chugureti turned into the city’s most contemporary hotel courtyard. The concrete walls are layered with murals from local and international street artists, and the space around them is packed with independent design shops, small galleries, and cafes run by young Tbilisi creatives. It’s the clearest snapshot of where the city’s headed: industrial bones, DIY energy, and a generation of creative designers.
12:30 p.m.: Dry Bridge Market
Head to Dry Bridge Market, Tbilisi’s open-air flea market along the Mtkvari. Tables spill over with retro cameras, hand-drawn maps, enamel badges, silver jewelry, and paintings from local artists — some genuine antiques, some just wonderfully strange. It’s less a shopping stop than a slow browse, and one of the best places in the city to just point a camera and shoot.
2:00 p.m.: Lunch at Keto & Kote
Lunch at Keto & Kote, tucked down a hard-to-find cul-de-sac off a quiet side street near Rustaveli. The garden terrace looks out over the city from a hillside spread of greenery, and the food is Georgian classics refined without losing their identity — khinkali with a bright pesto, roquefort and hot pepper sauce on grilled meat, a serious wine list. Book ahead if you can; the terrace tables go first.
4:00 p.m.: Mtatsminda Park & Funicular
Ride the historic funicular up Mtatsminda, in operation since 1905, for the widest view of Tbilisi you’ll get all trip — the whole city fanned out below, river to hills. At the top, Mtatsminda Park keeps a slightly retro carnival edge, but the real draw is grabbing coffee or dessert at one of the cafes right on the ridge and just sitting with the view for a while.
7:00 p.m.: Wine Experience
Skip the generic “wine tasting” and head to Vino Underground, a cooperative pouring small-batch natural wines you won’t find outside Georgia; or, for something livelier, wander Shardeni Street in the Old Town, a pedestrian row of wine bars and restaurants with terraces spilling onto the cobblestones.
8:30 p.m.: Café Littera
Close out the trip at Café Littera, inside the courtyard garden of the Writers’ House of Georgia — a leafy, string-lit space that feels more like a secret garden party than a restaurant. The menu reworks old Georgian recipes with a modern, almost tasting-menu precision: expect things like veal cheek with tkemali, or trout with walnut and pomegranate, plated far more delicately than the traditional versions. It’s a quiet, romantic way to end the trip.
Stay: Telegraph Hotel on Rustaveli
Use the second night to stay at Telegraph Hotel, a modern transformation of a Soviet telegraph building on Rustaveli Avenue. Design firm Neri & Hu paired the raw concrete brutalism with walnut, brass and fluted glass, and the property has nine restaurants and bars, including a jazz club honoring Tatuza Kurashvili and a rooftop bar overlooking the city. It’s a fitting last stop before flying out, and just steps from the Opera House and Old Town.
