Kutaisi to Tskaltubo — Transfer & Spa Town Tours

This changes from month to month, which is why older blog posts are unreliable here. Under the 'New Life for Tskaltubo' programme launched in 2022, fourteen buildings went to auction and were bought by Georgian and foreign investors. Iveria and Shakhtiori are now private property behind fencing. Sanatorium Tbilisi is under major reconstruction, although you can still walk up to the works. Others remain occupied by residents.

The practical approach is to treat the day as a slow circuit of the park with several possible stops rather than a fixed list. Ask before entering anything, do not photograph people's homes or their washing, and accept a refusal without argument — guards and residents are generally reasonable when asked first. Sturdy shoes matter here: floors in the disused blocks are broken, stairwells are unlit and there is glass everywhere.

Yes. Bathhouse No. 6, the one built for Stalin and opened in 1951, has been restored and operates as a medical and rehabilitation centre, open every day of the year from 10:00 to 17:00. The water arrives at 33–35°C without heating and is used for prescribed treatments rather than casual swimming, so a session is booked and timed rather than dropped into. Bring swimwear and a towel.

Several hotels in and around the park run their own balneology departments, so a spa visit does not have to mean the historic bathhouse. If treatment rather than architecture is the point of the trip, book ahead: the waters are traditionally taken as a course spread over several days, and a single afternoon between flights is not what the resort is set up for. We can wait or return later in the day.

Tskaltubo sits between the airport and Prometheus Cave at Kumistavi, so the three combine into one loop without backtracking. A morning arrival can take in the park, a bathhouse and the cave and still reach a Kutaisi hotel by evening. In the other direction the town makes an easy last stop before an afternoon departure, since the drive back to the terminal is around half an hour on a clear road.

Photographers almost always want longer than the schedule allows, so say at the start how much time you want at each stop. Winter light is short and the interiors are dark. Rain makes the sanatorium floors slippery and the park paths muddy, and there is little shelter once you are away from the car, so a waterproof layer is more useful here than it is in Kutaisi itself.