Georgia 3-Day Tour – Tbilisi and Borjomi

Overview

This three day Tbilisi and Borjomi tour is the long weekend as a family with children actually needs it: moderate distances, low altitudes that tire nobody, and open green space instead of crowded lanes. Its angle is clear and different from our other short programmes out of the capital: this is green Tbilisi, not historic Tbilisi. We do not enter the Old Town and we do not climb into the Caucasus; we begin instead at Vake Park, Turtle Lake and the Tbilisi Botanical Garden, places where children can run safely and a family can sit on the grass. If you want Narikala, the sulphur baths and the Old Town markets, our one day Tbilisi tour is the better fit; if you want the high mountains, the two day Kazbegi tour is where you belong. Day two covers about 160 kilometres west on a flat motorway, with a stop at the rock-cut town of Uplistsikhe near Gori, then the rest of the day in Borjomi Central Park: the warm mineral spring, the stone path along the river, and the cable car up to the ridge overlooking the town. The second night is spent in Borjomi itself rather than the capital, so the children wake to pine air rather than city noise. On day three we drive back east through Mtskheta. We are frank about where this programme stops: Uplistsikhe is a climb over uneven rock that no pushchair and no tired knee will manage, and anyone who would rather not can wait and rest in the cafe at the entrance; Mtskheta here is a two-hour stop, so if you want it in depth, Mtskheta and Jvari 3 Day Tour is your programme; and Bakuriani, the historic mountain railway and the Vardzia caves are not included, so choose Borjomi and Bakuriani 5 Day Tour if you want them. Borjomi sits at around eight hundred metres and its nights are cool even in August, so pack a light jacket. An Arabic-speaking driver means you never mime what your child needs, and that child seats and a short roadside break every hour are arranged in advance. The car with an Arabic-speaking driver is priced per day for the whole car, the two hotel nights are optional from our approved hotels, and there is no prepayment: you pay on arrival. Read Family Activities in Georgia and Best Time to Visit Georgia, and for longer with shopping, Georgia Shopping Tour 4 Days.

The package includes

• ✔ Private family car with an Arabic-speaking driver for all three days
• ✔ Two hotel nights, one in Tbilisi and one in Borjomi
• ✔ Child seats fitted in the car when requested in advance
• ✔ Tbilisi airport pick-up and drop-off
• ✔ A stop at the rock-cut town of Uplistsikhe on the way to Borjomi
• ✔ Open time in Borjomi Central Park and at the mineral water spring
• ✔ Mtskheta on the way back: Jvari church and Svetitskhoveli Cathedral
• ✔ Child-friendly halal restaurant suggestions in Tbilisi and Borjomi
• ✔ Fuel, road charges and parking throughout

Trip Itinerary

1. Day 1: Day One | Green Tbilisi for families

   You are met at Tbilisi International Airport and driven to the hotel, seventeen kilometres in about half an hour, and we do not start the sightseeing until the family has rested after the flight. At around eleven we go up to Vake Park and take the short cable car from it to Turtle Lake, a small quiet lake ringed by a flat loop path of some nine hundred metres that a pushchair handles easily, with cafes and a small playground around it. We spend an hour and a half there. Lunch at a halal restaurant near Vake with time to pray, then a short nap at the hotel for anyone with small children. In the afternoon we drop down to the Tbilisi Botanical Garden below Narikala Fortress: its paths are shaded and run along both sides of a narrow valley, and reaching the small waterfall inside takes about twenty minutes of walking up and back down, so anyone with a baby stays on the flat first section near the entrance. An early dinner and back to the hotel, since tomorrow starts at half past eight and is the longest day of the programme.

2. Day 2: Day Two | Uplistsikhe, then Borjomi and its mineral water

   We leave Tbilisi at half past eight heading west on the motorway, a flat dual carriageway with few bends that troubles nobody who suffers on mountain roads. After about a hundred kilometres and an hour and a half we stop at Uplistsikhe near Gori: an entire town carved into sandstone since before the Christian era, with halls, pagan temples, channels and a secret tunnel that drops on steep steps to the riverbank. The visit takes one to one and a half hours over open rock with no shade, so carry water and hats in July and August; trainers here are a necessity, not a preference. We continue another eighty-five kilometres, about an hour and a quarter, reaching Borjomi in the afternoon, check in and leave the bags. Then we enter Central Park and walk about a kilometre and a half along the Borjomula river under the pines to the mineral spring, where you drink the water warm at its source; its salty, sulphurous taste startles children the first time and most of them refuse it, laughing. Afterwards we ride the park cable car up to the ridge above the valley with its Ferris wheel. Dinner and the night in Borjomi among the forest, and the night air here is cold, so get the jackets out of the case.

3. Day 3: Day Three | Likani and the return through Mtskheta

   A quiet morning in the Likani district on the edge of Borjomi at the gateway to Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, with a short level walk among the trees along the river before we leave; it is the best air you will breathe on the whole trip. Check out at about half past ten, then the road back east, some 150 kilometres in two hours. We stop in Mtskheta, Georgia's ancient capital, only twenty kilometres from Tbilisi: first up a side road to Jvari church on the hilltop, where from its open terrace the Aragvi and the Mtkvari meet in two different colours directly below you, and the wind is strong, so hold the little ones' hands. Then down to Svetitskhoveli Cathedral inside its stone wall, where modest dress is required and women cover their heads to enter, and past the craft and churchkhela stalls on its street. A last halal lunch in Mtskheta or at the edge of Tbilisi depending on your flight, then into the capital in the afternoon and transfer to the airport allowing three hours before take-off, or to the hotel if your holiday continues.

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