Abanotubani sulfur baths

Tbilisi literally means “warm place”, and the brick domes of Abanotubani are why: hot sulfur water has been piped into these bathhouses since the city began. Book a private room, submit to the kisa scrub, and emerge an hour later with the softest skin of your adult life and a mild sense of having been laundered.

• The domed roofs, the bathhouse quarter’s half-buried brick bubbles, steaming gently at street level.
• A private bath room, your own hot pool, plunge pool and rest bench by the hour.
• The kisa scrub, a mitt, soap clouds and zero mercy from the attendant.
• Orbeliani Baths, the blue-tiled facade that looks borrowed from Samarkand.

Evenings and weekends book out; reserve a room a day ahead or bathe mid-morning. An hour is enough for a first visit, and the scrub is worth its small supplement every time.

The quarter sits at the foot of Narikala in the Old Town, beside the Leghvtakhevi waterfall gorge. Cable car down, bathe, then dinner in the lanes: the classic Tbilisi evening.