Tbilisi National Park

Tbilisi National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Tbilisi National Park is the forested range of hills north of the Georgian capital between Mtskheta and the Tianeti road, twenty to forty minutes from the city, and it should not be confused with the many Tbilisi city parks, funiculars and museums that fill any search for the name, nor with the hiking tours sold from Tbilisi to Kazbegi, Juta, Svaneti or Borjomi, which go to other mountains entirely. Almost nothing is sold for the park itself; it is a place for a self-organised day. The visitor centre at Saguramo, at the park's western edge near Mtskheta, issues the free permits for the marked trails, rents a guide for the day and sells the small camping fees, and the local hiking clubs and the private guides of Tbilisi run day walks to the Zedazeni monastery ridge and the Sabaduri forest when asked.

The one thing widely visited is Zedazeni, the sixth-century monastery on the ridge above Mtskheta with a view over the confluence of the Aragvi and the Mtkvari, reached by a rough road or on foot from Saguramo and included in some Mtskheta tours; the Sabaduri forest on the Tianeti road, whose beech trees form a tunnel over the road that is photographed in autumn and in snow, is the other stop. Independent visitors take a taxi or a marshrutka to Saguramo or drive the Tianeti road and walk from the trailheads; the trails are marked and no fee is charged.

Visiting Tbilisi National Park: what you will see

The park was established in 1973 on the basis of the Saguramo reserve of 1946 and is the oldest national park in Georgia, covering about 243 square kilometres of the Saguramo range on the left bank of the Aragvi north-east of Tbilisi, a range of wooded ridges rising to 1,385 metres at its highest point, between the historic town of Mtskheta at its western edge and the Iori valley to the east. The forest is the park's substance: oak, hornbeam and beech on the slopes with pine on the ridges, an unbroken canopy within sight of a capital of a million people, with the Sabaduri stretch of the Tianeti road tunnelling through beech trees for several kilometres. The wildlife is Caucasian: red deer, roe deer, wild boar, brown bear, lynx, wolf, jackal and fox, all secretive, and the birds of prey over the ridges, with the park's role as a corridor for the animals between the Caucasus and the lowland forests its main scientific value.

The Zedazeni monastery on the western ridge, founded by one of the thirteen Assyrian fathers who brought monasticism to Georgia in the sixth century, has a small church, a well and the best view in the park, over Mtskheta, the Jvari church on its hill and the two rivers meeting below; the Ilia Chavchavadze house museum at Saguramo, the estate of the nineteenth-century writer, stands at the park's gate. The marked trails run from Saguramo up to Zedazeni and along the ridge, from the Tianeti road into the Sabaduri forest and to the Mamkoda monastery on the southern edge, and the campsites and the picnic spots along them are used by Tbilisi families on summer weekends. The park is not spectacular; it is the green wall behind the city and the easiest wild walk from it.

Tbilisi National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open at all times, with the Saguramo visitor centre from about 10 am to 6 pm on working days. Spring from April to June and autumn from mid-September to early November are the best seasons, with wildflowers and then the beech forest turning gold and red at Sabaduri;

summer is hot in the valleys but pleasant on the ridge, and winter from December to March brings snow on the Tianeti road and the famous snow tunnel of Sabaduri, which draws photographers on the first clear days. Weekends bring picnickers to the road-side clearings. Allow half a day for Zedazeni or Sabaduri, a full day for the ridge walk. Mtskheta with its cathedral and the Jvari church is at the park gate, and Tbilisi is half an hour away.