Tbilisi exploration

After breakfast, lace up your walking shoes for a exploration of Tbilisi's layered history. We'll wind through the narrow lanes of the Old Town, where wooden balconies overhang cobblestones and sulfur bathhouse domes recall the city's ancient name: "Tbili" (warm). Your guide will share stories of Persian invasions, Silk Road merchants, and the resilient spirit that's defined this crossroads city for 1,500 years.

Highlights include the cliff-hanging Narikala Fortress (4th century), the colorful Peace Bridge spanning the Mtkvari River, and the eclectic architecture of Rustaveli Avenue. We'll visit Sioni Cathedral and the brick-domed sulfur baths where Pushkin once soaked.

While savoring traditional Georgian dishes with a contemporary twist at lunch, you'll enjoy panoramic views stretching across terracotta rooftops to the Caucasus foothills.

The afternoon is yours to explore at leisure. Browse the flea market at the Dry Bridge, sample churchkhela (walnut-stuffed grape candy) from street vendors, or simply relax at a neighborhood café or a sulfur bath.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Activity Level: Moderate (3-4 hours walking on uneven surfaces, elevation changes)
Accommodation: Boutique hotel, Old Tbilisi

Into Wine Country

This morning we head east to Kakheti, Georgia's premier agricultural and wine region where viticulture has flourished for 8,000 years—making it the world's oldest wine-producing area. The landscape transforms into a tapestry of vine-covered valleys backed by the Greater Caucasus peaks. Even without drinking wine, grapes do play a very important role in Georgian culture and daily life.

We stop in the charming town of Telavi (about 1,5 hours from Tbilisi) to take a look at its market - Telavi Bazaar, the beating heart of Kakheti's regional capital. Open from 7am, the market overflows with stalls selling fresh pomegranates, figs, walnuts, churchkhela (the famous walnut-filled grape candy), and the aromatic spice mixes that define Georgian cooking. Your guide will navigate you through it all — leave time to stock up on spices to take home.

From Telavi, you head into the Alazani Valley for the Rtveli harvest experience. Kakheti produces roughly 70% of Georgia's wine, and treading grapes in a wooden satsnakheli vat the way families have done for millennia is a joyful, messy, unforgettable ritual. This is accompanied by live Georgian polyphonic singing — a UNESCO-listed intangible cultural heritage, with overlapping voices that seem to vibrate from the earth itself.

Later, we will take part in a hands-on master class baking shoti bread in a tone (cylindrical clay oven), where the dough is slapped onto the inner wall and peeled off in minutes as a blistered, fragrant loaf.

Those interested in wine will enjoy a wine tasting in town to round of the evening.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Activity Level: Moderate
Accommodation: Hotel in Kakheti

Halong Cruise ends, on to Hue

After breakfast, the road winds south through the vineyards to Signagi, one of the most charming towns in the Caucasus. Perched high above the Alazani plain with sweeping views toward the Greater Caucasus mountains, it's nicknamed the City of Love — couples famously travel here to marry, as Signagi's registry office is open 24 hours. A walk along the restored 18th-century fortress walls and cobblestone lanes sets the mood beautifully.

The Sighnagi National Museum (also known as the Pirosmani Museum) holds the largest collection of works by Niko Pirosmani, Georgia's beloved self-taught primitive painter who lived and died in poverty and is now considered a national icon. The museum also has exceptional archaeological finds from the Alazani Valley and a terrace with arguably the finest panoramic view in all of Kakheti.

A short drive south brings you to Bodbe Monastery, a serene complex tended by nuns, shaded by tall cypresses, and filled with flowering gardens. This is the burial place of St. Nino, the Cappadocian woman who converted Georgia to Christianity in the 4th century — making it one of the most spiritually significant sites in the country. The grounds are immaculately kept and remarkably peaceful.

We will enjoy lunch at a local restaurant celebrated for traditional Kakhetian food and beautiful valley views before the drive back to Tbilisi (approx. 1.5 hrs).

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Distance: Approximately 140 km/86 miles
Activity Level: Moderate (walking on uneven terrain, some stairs at historical sites)
Accommodation: Boutique hotel, Old Tbilisi

Mountain Heights & Waterfalls

After a relaxed breakfast, we we'll wind our way back to Tbilisi, arriving with time to enjoy a few hours in the afternoon in the capital at leisure. Perhaps treat yourself to a traditional sulfur bath, shop for last-minute souvenirs, or marvel at the city´s wonderful buildings. Alternatively, head to the Giorgi Chitaia Open-Air Museum of Ethnography, set across a forested hillside on Tbilisi's outskirts. More than 70 authentic traditional dwellings — Svan stone towers, Kakhetian farmhouses, Adjaran wooden homes, Gurian cottages — have been relocated here from villages across Georgia, furnished exactly as they would have been lived in.

Meals: Breakfast, Picnic Lunch
Distance: Approximately 150 km return
Accommodation: Boutique hotel, Old Tbilisi