Overview
This 4 day Kakheti and Sighnaghi tour takes you into the eastern province that looks nothing like the rest of Georgia: the Alazani valley running for more than a hundred kilometres, the wall of the Greater Caucasus behind it separating Georgia from Dagestan, and villages, citadels and fourth-century monasteries spread across the middle. It suits the traveller who has already seen Tbilisi and Batumi and has come back for the rural face of the country, and it suits couples and small families. This is not a tasting tour: if you do not drink you miss nothing, because the real material here is the landscape, the fortresses, the monasteries and the harvest season. Any winery visit stays entirely optional, and restaurants are chosen for grilled meat and vegetables that are halal. The rhythm is a loop rather than a nightly return to one base: a night in Tbilisi, a night in Telavi, the provincial capital, after crossing the Gombori pass, then a night in Sighnaghi above the valley, then back west. If you want Sighnaghi alone at a slower pace for two, see Sighnaghi City of Love 4 Day Tour; for the rest of the region, Kakheti Tour Packages; and to pick the right month for the harvest, Best Time to Visit Georgia. An Arabic-speaking driver changes this particular route because Kakheti's sights are scattered between villages with nothing linking them, and the distances between Nekresi, Gremi and Kvareli are short but the roads are minor and signed in Georgian script alone.
الباقة تشمل
- ✔ Private car with an Arabic-speaking driver for all four days in Tbilisi and Kakheti
- ✔ Three nights in three bases: one in Tbilisi, one in Telavi and one in Sighnaghi
- ✔ Pick-up from Tbilisi International Airport and drop-off on departure
- ✔ Crossing the Gombori mountain pass at about 1,600 metres instead of the long valley road
- ✔ Batonis Tsikhe fortress in Telavi, the Tsinandali estate and garden, and Alaverdi Cathedral
- ✔ Nekresi monastery above the Alazani valley, the royal citadel of Gremi and Ikalto academy
- ✔ Arrival in Sighnaghi before sunset, open time on its wall, and Bodbe Monastery
- ✔ Any winery or cellar visit is entirely optional; restaurants chosen for halal grilled meat
- ✔ Booking on WhatsApp https://wa.me/995550000663 with a company officially registered in Georgia
Trip Itinerary
اليوم 1: Day One | Arrival and a short evening on both banks of the Mtkvari
You are met at Tbilisi International Airport and driven to the hotel, seventeen kilometres and under half an hour outside rush hour. The evening is deliberately short because we head east early tomorrow: a walk through Rike Park on the river bank, across the glass Bridge of Peace to the old side, and a stop at Abanotubani to see the brick domes and rising sulphur steam from outside. A first Georgian dinner in the quarter, built around grilled meat, then an early night. We leave Tbilisi at nine in the morning.
اليوم 2: Day Two | The Gombori pass to Telavi, Tsinandali and Alaverdi
We leave Tbilisi eastwards and climb the Gombori pass through beech forest, a mountain road of about 1,600 metres that shortens the run to Telavi to ninety-five kilometres. On the descent the whole Alazani valley opens in front of you with the Caucasus wall behind it. In Telavi we visit Batonis Tsikhe, the seat of King Erekle II, and stand under the ancient plane tree in the centre of town. In the afternoon we move to the Tsinandali estate: the Chavchavadze family house and its English garden, planted in the nineteenth century with trees brought from Europe. We finish at eleventh-century Alaverdi Cathedral, some fifty metres tall in an otherwise empty plain. Overnight in Telavi.
اليوم 3: Day Three | The monasteries of the province, then down to Sighnaghi
A morning among Kakheti's monasteries: Ikalto academy, where twelfth-century poets studied and the stone vaults still stand, then Gremi citadel and the Church of the Archangels, what remains of the sixteenth-century capital of the Kakhetian kingdom. We climb to Nekresi, hung on a slope above the whole plain, from where the Alazani lies below you like an unfolded map. If you want water and shade we add Lake Ilia at Kvareli. In the late afternoon we drive some sixty kilometres south to Sighnaghi, entering before sunset, when the light over the valley is at its best. Overnight in Sighnaghi.
اليوم 4: Day Four | Bodbe, the Sighnaghi wall, then back
We begin at Bodbe Monastery, two kilometres from town, with its long cypress avenue, the tomb of St Nino and a viewpoint over the valley from the edge of the garden. Back in Sighnaghi there is a short walk along the stone wall and through streets of wooden balconies and stalls of carpets and crafts. After a late lunch we drive west to Tbilisi, a hundred and ten kilometres through Sagarejo and about two hours, with a last photo stop at the final view over the Alazani before the road swallows the ridge. Transfer to Tbilisi International Airport according to your flight, or to your hotel if you are extending.