Tbilisi Tours, Off the Beaten Track
Georgia’s regions are a dizzying variety of amazing places, but I still make my home in Tbilisi. I do wonder why sometimes. Nowadays, the traffic is chaotic, the air not so clean; peace and quiet are in short supply. Worst of all, a thousand construction projects rip down the elegant balconies and whimsical ornaments of the city I fell in love with years ago and put up soulless concrete skyscrapers in their place. Somehow, though, despite everything, Tbilisi retains its scintillating energy and a bohemian aesthetic, which in the end make up for the countless sins modernity has committed against it. Tbilisi is a truly beautiful city, a city of canyon, river, and mountain, a crossroads of the world where serpentine bazaars, angular streets, and grapevines climbing over thin brown bricks still heave with the memories of the Silk Road. One is here because everyone is here; every artist, musician, poet, or prophet has left their footprints on Tbilisi’s broken sidewalks, and few joys compare with the chance encounters of the city’s summer nights.
Experience Tbilisi’s Secrets with Me
Tbilisi’s swarming bazaars are their own kind of parallel universe – as are the quiet backstreet courtyards, the hidden rivers, the musical underground, the echoing bathhouses, the khinkali dungeons, and the details of every historical layer that has been laid down in this valley for the last sixteen centuries. I believe that Tbilisi is best encountered as one’s personal adventure, and I don’t tend to do Tbilisi tours as often as I go out to the regions. However, I’m always happy to give recommendations that might guide your path during your stay – and I can certainly arrange to show you some of my favorite secrets of my adopted hometown, some special corners of the outlying neighborhoods that you might not pick up on during your wanders in the old town. Adventure seekers could enjoy urbex in some of the old Soviet factories scattered throughout the outer suburbs, or the spectacular views from Kojori fortress. Please do get in touch if you might be interested in a special tour of Tbilisi and its less-known backstreets with me.
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Tbilisi has many secrets of its own. This spectacular canyon lies just a short walk from the Old Town, unknown to most visitors and many locals.
The flowering of 19th-century architecture in Tbilisi brought spectacularly painted ceilings and Art Nouveau design elements. This ceiling now overhangs the N9 Gallery in Chughureti district, formerly the house of a Persian merchant.
To the north of the city, the pleasant forests and green hills of Tbilisi National Park are a welcome escape, if you manage to get there after all the traffic jams.
One of my hobbies is photographing the rivers of Tbilisi. Here you can see the Mtkvari, the longest river in the Caucasus and the creator of the main valley that Tbilisi stands in.
A view of downtown Tbilisi from the Arsenal, a rewilded former military base that remains one of the best kept secrets in town, although the land is starting to be sold off for development.
Sunset over the city from the Khudadov forest, one of Tbilisi’s biggest green spaces.