Tbilisi: a guide

When to come to Tbilisi, which district to stay in, and what it costs.

Tbilisi is not a resort, it is a city of over a million people, and that is exactly why it is worth your time. The old districts, the sulphur baths and a table that stays laid until morning are twenty minutes apart. Most people start Georgia here and come back through it before they leave.

When to go

·May and June are the best of it. Warm, everything in flower, and not yet unbearable.
·September and October are the harvest season. Cool nights, easy days, and a full city.
·July and August hit 35 degrees and often more. Anyone who can leaves for the mountains, and hotel prices drop with them.
·December to February is cold, grey and rarely snowy. It is the cheapest time of year and nothing has a queue.

Getting there

·Tbilisi airport is 17 km from the centre. A taxi is 30 to 50 GEL, at any hour.
·Bus 337 runs from the airport to the centre for 1 GEL, about forty minutes.
·The train from Batumi takes five to six hours, from Kutaisi about five.
·From Kutaisi airport, where the cheap flights land, it is four hours by bus.

What it costs

A night in the centre90 to 250 GEL

Dinner with wine40 to 80 GEL

Metro or bus1 GEL

A taxi across town5 to 12 GEL

A private room at the baths60 to 150 GEL

Rough figures. They move with the season and the place.

Worth doing

·Old Tbilisi and Abanotubani. The sulphur baths are hired by the hour, not by the ticket.
·Narikala and the botanical garden. Walk down into the garden from the fortress rather than up into it.
·The left bank: Marjanishvili and Agmashenebeli avenue, in the evening.
·The Dezerter bazaar, if you want to see where what you eat in a restaurant comes from.
·A half day in Mtskheta, thirty minutes out of the centre.

One thing worth knowing

Do not flag a taxi in the street: the price is named after you arrive and it is three times the real one. An app costs a fraction of it and works everywhere in the city.