Free Walking Tour Tbilisi: Old Town to Rustaveli

Your Tbilisi Walking Tour, from Anchiskhati to Dry Bridge

1. 1

   Anchiskhati Basilica

   

   You start at the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi. Old Georgian annals credit King Dachi of Iberia, who made Tbilisi his capital in the sixth century, with building it. Look at the walls: the original church was raised from yellow tuff blocks, while the restoration of 1958 to 1964 added a lot of brick. Inside, two abutments divide the three-span basilica and form horseshoe-shaped conches, a sign of how old the construction is. Of the three entrances, only the western one is still used.

   The church was first dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Its present name, icon of Ancha, arrived in 1675, when a treasured icon of the Saviour made by the twelfth-century goldsmith Beka Opizari was carried here from the Ancha monastery in Klarjeti to save it from an Ottoman invasion. The icon stayed for centuries and now hangs in the Art Museum of Georgia. The brick belfry beside the church dates from the same year, built by Catholicos Domenti.

   Wars with Persians and Turks damaged the church again and again, and a dome added in the 1870s changed its look completely. Under Soviet rule services stopped; the building became a handicraft museum and later an art studio. The restoration for the city's 1500th jubilee brought back the seventeenth-century form, but worship only returned in 1991.

   Entry is free and the visit is short; step in if you like quiet, dim early churches. If you ever get the chance to hear the Anchiskhati Choir, known worldwide for Georgian polyphonic singing, take it. From here it is 630 m, about 8 minutes, to Rike Park.

   Hours

   Mon–Fri: 09:00–18:00 | Sat–Sun: 09:00–19:00

   Price

   Free

   Website

   anchiskhati.ge ↗

   Location

   Anchiskhati Basilica on Google Maps ↗

2. 2

   Rike Park

   

   Rike was once a whole quarter of old Tbilisi on the left bank of the Kura, the river Georgians call Mtkvari. In the seventeenth century this stretch of riverbank served as an arena, and the great Avchala road to Russia ran through it. When the river rose, Rike flooded.

   By the nineteenth century the area had a bazaar, a caravanserai and rows of workshops for tinsmiths, leather workers, tanners and dyers. In the 1970s the city cleared the old buildings to tidy up the riverfront, and the open ground that remains is today's park.

   Look for an unexpected visitor: on 23 November 2011 a monument to Ronald Reagan was unveiled here. The park is free and open around the clock, and the glass canopy of the Bridge of Peace links it with the Old Town; you will cross that bridge later in the walk.

   Next comes the first real climb of the day: 1200 m, about 23 minutes, up to the Mother of Georgia Monument.

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Rike Park on Google Maps ↗

3. 3

   Mother of Georgia Monument

   

   High on Sololaki hill stands a 20-metre aluminium woman in Georgian national dress. In one hand she holds a bowl of wine for friends, in the other a sword for enemies, and that pairing is meant as a portrait of the Georgian character. Beneath her you look over the Tbilisi Botanical Garden and the Tsavkisistskali river with its three bridges.

   The figure went up in 1958 for the 1500th anniversary of Tbilisi, by the sculptor Elguja Amashukeli, who won the Shota Rustaveli State Prize for it in 1966. It was meant to be temporary and was carved in wood. When the city decided to keep it, the wood was clad in aluminium in 1963 to protect it, and in 1997 the old statue was replaced by a new one.

   There is a twist in the story. According to the ethnologist Madlen Pilz, this was the first monument in the Soviet Union dedicated to a motherland figure, earlier than the similar women in other republics. Unlike them, it does not celebrate victory in the Second World War but the city's founding. In Yerevan, Mother Armenia rose in 1967 on the empty pedestal of a Stalin statue removed in 1962.

   The monument is free and always open. The fortress walls are close: 350 m, about 5 minutes, to Narikala Fortress.

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Mother of Georgia Monument on Google Maps ↗

4. 4

   Narikala Fortress

   

   Narikala is currently closed, so you see it from outside. Its walls in two sections run along a steep ridge between the sulfur baths and the botanical garden, overlooking the city and the river. The name comes from Persian narin qala, the inner citadel; the Mongols later read it as the small fortress. The first written mention under that name is from the German traveller Johann Güldenstädt in 1772.

   Legend says King Vakhtang Gorgasali founded the fortress together with the city. One historians' version puts a stronghold here in the fourth century under King Varaz-Bakur; Sasanian Iran took it, and the kings of Kartli won it back in the fifth century. It was enlarged in the seventh century and again by David the Builder, who reigned from 1089 to 1125. Most of the walls you see today date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and an earthquake in 1827 brought much of them down.

   Until the seventeenth century a royal palace stood inside, near the entrance tunnel. After Kartli-Kakheti joined Russia in 1801, the fortress lost its role, and the Russian army stored gunpowder in the Church of St Nicholas in the lower courtyard. In 1847 lightning struck and the depot exploded. The church has since been rebuilt.

   From the walls it is 530 m, about 8 minutes, down to the Sulfur Baths.

   Status

   Currently closed

   Location

   Narikala Fortress on Google Maps ↗

5. 5

   Sulfur Baths

   

   Welcome to Abanotubani, literally the bath district. Hot sulfur springs rise under the city and have been used for more than 700 years; in the thirteenth century there were around 65 baths here. Today seven or eight still operate. Watch for the low brick domes at street level: the bath halls lie underground and take their daylight through these hemispherical domes, built in Persian style from the first half of the seventeenth century.

   Pick out the individual houses. The Orbeliani Bath of 1893 wears the façade of a Persian madrasa and is nicknamed the colourful bath. The Royal Bath is one of the best known, the Irakli Bath reaches right up to the fortress wall and counts as the oldest, and nearby are the Bebutov and Sumbati baths. The Seidabad name recalls Seyyids from Persia who settled at the springs in the seventeenth century.

   The baths were never only about washing. Townspeople came to trade news and opinions, and Tuesday and Wednesday were reserved for women, who showed off their newest clothes while matchmakers quietly looked for brides.

   Walking past is free; a private room is paid by the hour, so agree on room and price before you go in. A soak suits anyone with time to spare and tired legs. Then it is 750 m, about 11 minutes, to Metekhi Church.

   Hours

   Daily 09:00–23:00

   Price

   Private rooms 130-600 GEL per hour depending on room size/equipment (1-2 pers. 130 GEL up to 1-12 pers. 600 GEL)

   Website

   chreli-abano.ge ↗

   Location

   Sulfur Baths on Google Maps ↗

6. 6

   Metekhi Church

   

   Metekhi sits on its cliff on the left bank, facing the Old Town. Georgian builders liked their churches to grow out of the landscape, and this one was meant to look like a continuation of the rock, visible from many corners of the city. Most of what stands was built between 1278 and 1289 under King Demetrius II, though tradition traces the site back to the fifth century.

   Walk round to the east side to see its oddity: three convex apses, the middle one the largest, a form unknown among other churches of that period. The dome rests on four pillars, an older feature than the usual two. Lightning hit the drum in the seventeenth century and it was restored in the eighteenth. The southern façade swapped its hewn stone for brick in the eighteenth century, while the original walls survive on the east and north. The stone carvings outside are typical of Georgia's Golden Age.

   Entry is free and it is a working church, so dress accordingly. A short look inside is worth it for the four pillars and the atmosphere. From here it is 900 m, about 13 minutes, to the Bridge of Peace.

   Hours

   Mon–Sat: 09:00–20:00 | Sun: 08:30–20:00

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Metekhi Church on Google Maps ↗

7. 7

   Bridge of Peace

   

   This bow-shaped footbridge of steel and glass stretches 150 m over the Kura, linking Rike Park with the Old Town. It opened on 6 May 2010, commissioned by the city to join old Tbilisi with the new district. People compare its curved canopy to a sea creature.

   The Italian architect Michele De Lucchi designed it; the French lighting designer Philippe Martinaud did the lights. The structure was built in Italy and brought to Tbilisi in 200 trucks, and the lighting was fitted on site. The roof carries 1,208 custom LED fixtures, and low-power LED strips run inside the glass handrails along the whole walkway.

   Stand in the middle and turn around: on one side Metekhi Church, the statue of the city's founder Vakhtang Gorgasali and Narikala Fortress; on the other, Baratashvili Bridge and the Ceremonial Palace of Georgia. The lights switch on 90 minutes before sunset and run four programmes every hour, sometimes waves from bank to bank, sometimes bands meeting in the middle. Come back after dark if you can.

   Next is a longer stretch uphill: 1800 m, about 29 minutes, to the Holy Trinity Cathedral (Sameba).

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Bridge of Peace on Google Maps ↗

8. 8

   Holy Trinity Cathedral (Sameba)

   

   Sameba is the main cathedral of the Georgian Orthodox Church and the third-tallest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in the world. It is new: built between 1995 and 2004, it blends styles from many periods of Georgian church architecture with a Byzantine note.

   The idea dates from 1989, a year of national awakening in Soviet Georgia, to mark 1,500 years of the church's autocephaly and 2,000 years since the birth of Jesus. More than a hundred designs failed to win the first contest round before Archil Mindiashvili's plan was chosen. Civil unrest delayed work, and the foundation was laid only on 23 November 1995. Mostly anonymous donations from businessmen and ordinary citizens paid for it, and Catholicos Patriarch Ilia II consecrated it on St George's Day, 23 November 2004.

   There is a shadow on the site: part of the land once belonged to the old Armenian cemetery of Khojavank, whose church was destroyed in the Soviet era on the orders of Lavrenti Beria.

   Entry is free and the interior is worth time for its sheer scale. The dress code is strict: covered shoulders, long trousers for men, headscarf and a skirt or trousers below the knee for women. Then comes the longest leg, 2080 m, about 30 minutes, to the Parliament of Georgia; on the way you pass the Georgian Museum of Fine Arts.

   Hours

   Mon–Fri: 07:00–22:00 | Sat–Sun: 07:00–21:00

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Holy Trinity Cathedral (Sameba) on Google Maps ↗

9. 9

   Parliament of Georgia

   

   At 8 Rustaveli Avenue stands a building that tells a hard century of Georgian history. It was built as the House of Government of Soviet Georgia, on the site of the demolished nineteenth-century Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and its churchyard, where Georgian cadets killed during the Bolshevik invasion of 1921 were buried.

   The complex has two parts. The upper building by Viktor Kokorin and Giorgi Lezhava went up from 1933 to 1938; the lower one along the avenue followed from 1946 to 1953, with input from Vladimer Nasaridze. Look at the monumental arcade facing the street, the heavy eaves and the arched pediment, all borrowing from traditional Georgian architecture. The concrete is clad in tufa and granite.

   In the coup of December 1991 and January 1992, President Zviad Gamsakhurdia held out in the bunker under the building, and the complex was badly damaged. Restored, it housed Parliament from 1997 until 2012, when the legislature moved to Kutaisi. Parliament fully returned to Tbilisi in January 2019.

   You see it from outside, for free. The museum is only 190 m away, about 3 minutes.

   Price

   Free (exterior)

   Location

   Parliament of Georgia on Google Maps ↗

10. 10

    Georgian National Museum

    

    The Georgian National Museum is an umbrella for the country's leading museums, created by presidential decree on 30 December 2004. It brings together the Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia, the art museum, the open-air museum of folk architecture, several house museums, the Museum of Soviet Occupation and regional museums. Its collections hold the largest part of Georgia's national treasures.

    The oldest member was founded in 1852 as the museum of the Caucasus department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and was called the Caucasian Museum until 1919. It keeps around one and a half million objects on the nature and peoples of Georgia, the Caucasus and the Near East: geology, fossils, plants and animals, rich archaeology and ethnography, coin hoards and photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    Entry is paid and you need about an hour and a half to do it justice. It is the stop for anyone curious about Georgia before its churches, or travelling with children who like bones and gold. If time is short, keep walking. The next leg is 880 m, about 13 minutes, along Rustaveli Avenue to the Georgian National Opera.

    Hours

    Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00 (last entry 17:30); closed Mon and on official public holidays

    Price

    20 GEL adults (Georgian citizens) / 40 GEL adults (foreign visitors)

    Website

    museum.ge ↗

    Location

    Georgian National Museum on Google Maps ↗

11. 11

    Georgian National Opera

    

    Founded in 1851, the Tbilisi opera is the main opera house of Georgia and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. Since 1896 it has lived in this neo-Moorish building by the Baltic German architect Victor Schröter. The decoration outside is clearly oriental, yet the foyers and the hall inside follow the plan of a typical European opera house.

    Fires damaged it several times. The latest restoration took six years and finished in January 2016, paid for by a Georgian business foundation. Since 1937 the house has carried the name of Zacharia Paliashvili, the national composer who once lived here, and it is home to the State Ballet of Georgia under the ballerina Nina Ananiashvili. Montserrat Caballé and José Carreras have sung here, and the house also hosts national celebrations and presidential inaugurations.

    Its founding is tied to politics: after Russia annexed Georgia in 1801, the country fitted uneasily into the empire, and in 1832 Georgian nobles plotted to overthrow the local Russian government. Entry is paid; ask at the box office about tickets for a performance, which is the best way to see the hall. The final leg is 810 m, about 10 minutes, to Dry Bridge Market.

    Hours

    Daily: 11:00–19:00

    Website

    opera.ge ↗

    Location

    Georgian National Opera on Google Maps ↗

12. 12

    Dry Bridge Market

    

    You end at a bridge that no longer crosses water. Dry Bridge is known for its flea market and for paintings displayed for sale. Browse old odds and ends, and remember that at stalls like these bargaining is expected; bring cash.

    The story is one of delays. In the 1830s the city decided to build a bridge here to reach the new quarters on the left bank, but no leaseholder came forward and the money went to the military. Sappers put up wooden bridges that the river kept washing away. Under Viceroy Mikheil Vorontsov the architect Giovanni Scudieri drew a new plan of a large and a small bridge; Vorontsov laid the foundation on 26 November 1848. Scudieri finished only the single-span bridge over the river's right arm before he died in 1851 while building a church.

    Under it ran an arm of the Kura that cut off an island owned by the Orbeliani family and later by Madatov. When that arm dried up in the 1930s, the island vanished and the bridge got its name. Its stone arch spans 32 m, once one of the largest in the Russian Empire, with an 11-metre roadway, and it looks almost as it did then. At its head stand two former hotels facing each other, the Grand Hotel and the London.

    Entry is free. Take your time among the stalls; this is where the walk winds down.

    Hours

    Daily: 11:00–18:00

    Price

    Free (entry)

    Location

    Dry Bridge Market on Google Maps ↗

Shorter Ways to Walk Tbilisi

Not every day has room for 10.1 km. These cuts follow the route's own order, so the GPS navigation still leads you from stop to stop.

Old Town and river only

Stops: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

For a first half day: the oldest church, the monument on Sololaki hill, the fortress walls, the bath district, Metekhi and the Bridge of Peace. 1 h 8 min of walking. Everything is free unless you book a bath.

Old Town plus Sameba

Stops: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

For church lovers who want the new cathedral as the finale. 1 h 37 min of walking, no entry fees on the way except an optional bath.

Rustaveli Avenue afternoon

Stops: 9, 10, 11, 12

For museum time and the flea market: Parliament, National Museum, Opera and Dry Bridge. Only 26 min of walking; the museum and the opera charge entry.

How Long This Tbilisi Tour Takes, With and Without Visits

The order runs from the Old Town up to Sololaki hill, down into the bath district, across the river to Metekhi and Sameba, and then back to Rustaveli Avenue. The longest legs are the climb to Sameba and the walk from there to Parliament, both around half an hour.

Count a quarter of an hour at most stops, a little longer at Sameba, half an hour for the Dry Bridge stalls and about an hour and a half if you go into the museum. That adds up to roughly seven hours for the full route. The Old Town variant fits into about two and a half hours plus any bath, the Rustaveli afternoon into close to three hours with the museum.

Before You Start in Tbilisi

• Start and finish: The recommended start is Anchiskhati Basilica, the finish is Dry Bridge Market. You can join at any stop and pick up the order from there.
• Time of day: Start in the morning: the Old Town half is done by lunch, which Georgians eat in the early afternoon, and Rustaveli Avenue fills the rest of the day.
• What costs money: The Georgian National Museum and the Georgian National Opera charge entry, and a private room at the Sulfur Baths is paid by the hour. All churches, the parks, the bridges and the monument are free.
• Dress for churches: Pack a light scarf and wear long trousers or a skirt below the knee with covered shoulders; four of the stops are working churches.
• Cash: Carry some cash for market stalls and small bakeries; larger restaurants take cards.

Food and Breaks Between the Baths and Rustaveli

Meals in Georgia are shared family style, and bread and water are ordered separately rather than brought automatically. The best value on this route is on the Rustaveli side; the bath district is where you pay the most for the least.

Tourist Traps to Avoid in Tbilisi's Old Town

• Shardeni Street restaurants: The most cited trap in town: prices well above other venues, smaller portions and a kitchen that expects you only once. Walk a few minutes further to Chugureti, Marjanishvili or Vera.
• Bath upselling: Agree on the room and the price before you go in; massage and kisa scrub are extras that get pushed hard. (Sulfur Baths)
• Street taxis: Drivers waiting at tourist sites and Freedom Square have no meter and price by instinct. Book through Bolt or Yandex Go instead, or agree on the fare before you get in.
• Service charge: VAT is already in menu prices, but many places add a service charge that does not reach the staff. If you want to reward your server, hand over cash directly.

Common Questions Before You Walk Tbilisi