Tskaltubo: a travel guide
Tskaltubo: the old sanatoriums, the baths, and what it costs.
Tskaltubo is a spa town about ten kilometres from Kutaisi. People once came here for treatment from far away; today many of the sanatoriums stand empty and only a few have been restored as hotels. People come for the baths, for Prometheus Cave and for the half-ruined buildings.
When to go
- ·The baths run all year, so Tskaltubo does not have a season the way a mountain resort does.
- ·May to June and September to October are the best time for walking in the park.
- ·July and August are hot and humid, as everywhere in Imereti. The cave stays cool.
Getting there
- ·By marshrutka from Didube in Tbilisi: a few direct ones leave each day, about four hours on the road.
- ·Or take a Kutaisi marshrutka from Tbilisi, three to three and a half hours, and go on by marshrutka or taxi in under half an hour.
- ·From Kutaisi airport by taxi, about half an hour.
What it costs
A night60 to 250 GEL
A session at the bathsA few tens of lari, depending on the treatment
Prometheus CaveAbout 25 GEL for foreigners, the boat extra
A taxi to Kutaisi15 to 25 GEL
Rough figures. They move with the season and the place.
Worth doing
- ·Bathhouse No. 6, still working. The water is about body temperature, roughly 33 to 35 degrees. You do not need to stay the night to take a single bath.
- ·The spa park and the abandoned sanatoriums around it.
- ·Prometheus Cave, a few kilometres out. The boat ride is sold separately and does not run when the water is high.
- ·Sataplia, with its dinosaur footprints, a cave and forest, near Kutaisi.
One thing worth knowing
Some of the buildings that look abandoned are lived in: families displaced from Abkhazia in the 1990s were housed in the sanatoriums, and some are still there. These are people's homes, so do not wander into yards and stairwells uninvited, and ask before taking photographs.