Georgia 4-Day Tour – Kutaisi and the Caves

Overview

This 4 day Kutaisi and caves tour rests on one idea: that western Georgia deserves to be visited for itself, not driven through between Tbilisi and Batumi. It suits younger travellers and nature lovers, anyone landing directly at Kutaisi International Airport, and anyone who wants four intensive days from one hotel with three nights in it. Kutaisi is the ideal base because everything is within an hour: Prometheus Cave at Kumistavi with its underground halls and a river crossed by boat; the Sataplia reserve with its dinosaur footprints and glass viewing platform; the turquoise Martvili Canyon, entered by inflatable boat; the Okatse Canyon with its walkway suspended over the gorge; and then Gelati and Motsameta monasteries. To fold this region into a longer route, see Georgia 8 Day Tour - Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Batumi; for similar programmes, Georgia Caves and Waterfalls Tours; to work out the cost precisely, How Much Does an Arabic Driver in Georgia Cost. An Arabic-speaking driver is not a luxury here: the sites are scattered among small villages on side roads with no public transport, entry to the canyons is limited by numbers, and anyone relying on taxis loses one site every day.

The package includes

• ✔ Private car with an Arabic-speaking driver for all four days across Imereti and Samegrelo
• ✔ Three nights in one Kutaisi hotel, with every excursion leaving from it and returning to it
• ✔ Pick-up from Kutaisi International Airport and drop-off on departure (about 14 km west of the city)
• ✔ Arranging Prometheus Cave tickets and the boat trip on its underground river
• ✔ Arranging the Martvili Canyon boats and tickets for the suspended walkway at Okatse Canyon
• ✔ A monastery day: Gelati with its mosaics and Motsameta above the Tskaltsitela gorge
• ✔ The driver waits at the gate of every site, however long you stay inside
• ✔ Early departures arranged to avoid the summer entry queues
• ✔ Booking on WhatsApp https://wa.me/995550000663 with a company officially registered in Georgia

Trip Itinerary

1. Day 1: Day One | Arrival, Bagrati and the central market by evening

   You are met at Kutaisi International Airport, about fourteen kilometres west of the city, and driven to the hotel. In the evening we climb Ukimerioni hill to Bagrati Cathedral, built by King Bagrat III at the turn of the second millennium, from where the whole of Kutaisi appears with the Rioni river cutting through it. We come down to the central square with the Colchis fountain and its gilded figures copied from the jewellery of the ancient kingdom of Colchis, then to the central market, which stays alive into the evening. Dinner in the old town near the White Bridge on the bank of the Rioni.

2. Day 2: Day Two | Prometheus Cave and the Sataplia reserve

   An early start about twenty kilometres to Kumistavi near Tskaltubo, and Prometheus Cave. The route inside runs more than a kilometre through a sequence of halls of stalactites and stalagmites lit in changing colours, and ends at an underground river you can leave by boat instead of on foot. The temperature inside is constant and fairly cold, so bring a light jacket. In the afternoon we move to the nearby Sataplia reserve to see dinosaur footprints preserved in the rock, its small cave, and a glass platform hanging out over the whole valley.

3. Day 3: Day Three | Martvili Canyon by boat and Okatse Canyon

   The day of the gorges. We drive about fifty kilometres north-west to Martvili Canyon in the Samegrelo region, where the Abasha river runs turquoise between stone walls and several hundred metres of it are covered by inflatable boat under small waterfalls; this was once the bathing place of the Dadiani princes. After lunch we come back south to Gordi village, the entrance to Okatse Canyon, where a metal walkway hangs for several hundred metres about twenty metres above the riverbed, ending at the viewpoint over the Kinchkha waterfall. Back to Kutaisi in the evening.

4. Day 4: Day Four | Gelati and Motsameta, then departure

   Check out and leave the luggage in the car. We climb eleven kilometres north-east of the city to Gelati Monastery, founded by King David the Builder in the twelfth century together with its academy, where a gold mosaic of the Virgin still stands in the apse of the main church. From there to the small monastery of Motsameta, perched on a rock ledge above the gorge of the red Tskaltsitela river. On the way to the airport we pass Tskaltubo and its well-known abandoned sanatoriums, then transfer to Kutaisi International Airport.

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