I was determined I was going to go to a traditional sulphur bath while I was in Tbilisi. I didn’t want to miss out on this genuine experience because it’s one of the things that Tbilisi is renowned for. Abanotubani is the ancient district of the city where the sulphur baths are located, the discovery of the hot springs was apparently the reason for building a city in this location.
I’d heard the sulphur baths were quite an experience. I was planning on having a massage, but I’d heard they were not exactly gentle and with my poor, painful shin, a remnant from the injury I suffered on the river crossing in the Juta Valley in the mountains the previous day, I didn’t know that I could take it.
I’d been wandering around the sulphur baths earlier and when I passed one, they called me in and invited me to look at a private room which was £10 an hour. They charged another £7 for a massage. I looked in another place where they weren’t so friendly and charged twice the price, so I went back to King Erekle’s Bath where they’d showed me round and I got a private room for an hour and also booked a massage. I was asked if I wanted a man or a woman to massage me. What kind of service were they offering here? I’ve had male massage therapists before, but that’s been in proper spas, not these bathhouses where the masseuse rubs you down with an exfoliating mitt and then washes you with soap and you can’t wear your bikini. I certainly didn’t want a bloke doing that! So I asked for a woman. They told me 15 minutes and the masseuse would be there (sorry I can’t call her a massage therapist), meantime I should have a shower and a soak in the sulphur bath.
You could smell the sulphur, it is supposed to be very good for your skin. The water is very hot! It’s like when you run a bath and it’s slightly too hot, but you don’t want to put cold water in and cool it down too much so you think, it will soon cool down and put up with it for a few minutes. Except this water never gets cooler and you feel like a boiled lobster! I could only manage a few minutes at a time and then I would get out and have a shower with cold water. Even the cold water wasn’t freezing cold, but it was cool.
The masseuse arrived, pretty well what I expected, a very large woman in her 60s wearing a black strapless dress and carrying a bucket. She took the stuff out of her bucket and told me to get in the hot sulphur bath and she had a shower. Thankfully, she kept her dress on. Then she got me to lay on the marble slab and got the bucket, filled it with the hot water from the sulphur bath and threw it over me. She started with the exfoliating mitt and then threw more hot water over me, did the same on my back and then she started washing me with soap. There was so much soap that when I turned over I slid down the marble slab, but there was a bit of a wall at the end which was useful to stop me sliding off completely.
She massaged my back and my legs a bit, the pressure was okay, not as hard as I thought it might be. Certainly not like the massage I had in Singapore where I thought I was going to die!
Then came the moment for her to throw buckets of hot water from the bath over me again to get rid of all the soap. She asked me to sit up, I’d read about this, this was where she was about to tip a whole bucket of water over my head. Which she did. What I didn’t expect was her to then to start to wash my hair. And if my lugholes were dirty, they certainly weren’t by the time she’d finished. Another couple of buckets of water over my head and then she did a second shampoo. And then she tipped a final couple of buckets of hot sulphuric water over my head. I thought I’d probably end up going home with green hair. After this holiday, that would absolutely not have surprised me. Actually though, that night my hair felt lovely, it was really soft. And as an added bonus, it didn’t turn green.
I was pleased I went to the sulphur baths. It was good to soak in the boiling sulphuric water. As a grown woman, I shouldn’t really be wanting someone else to give me a wash, but it’s all part of the Abanotubani ritual. The baths certainly weren’t fancy, but it felt more a more genuine experience that way. This was an ancient tradition of Tbilisi.
However, one word of warning. I thought I might go back to the sulphur baths on another day, but when I did go back, they were full. People are very nice to you when they’re not busy and are trying to get customers in, but when they don’t have space, they’re not only not interested, they’re downright rude. That was certainly my experience on my return to King Erekle’s Bath for a possible second bath.
I did try a more traditional spa experience near Telavi in the Kakheti region in Eastern Georgia.
I’d booked to go to a winery near Telavi which also had a wine spa, so I booked some treatments as well as a wine tour and wine tasting. The wine tour lasted 10 minutes and consisted of the hotel manager, who was wearing jeans and a hoodie, showing me the barrels and tanks and clay pots.
At least my tasting of 7 wines, followed by a glass of my favourite took some time, accompanied by bread, cheese and walnut slices in grapes. I’d never had walnut slices in grapes before, but they were delicious. And I tasted the first decent qvevri white wine I’d had in Georgia, however, the qvevri red was the best and I had a second glass of that. This place was expensive and got rave reviews, and while it was okay, it wasn’t very grand by European standards.
When it got to time for my massage, I had to go and find the manager to ask him where I needed to go instead of someone coming to get me and they were hardly swamped, there was me and a party of four eating lunch!
I’d booked a full body and head massage with a wine bath, followed by a reflexology massage. The wine bath was hot water in a stainless steel bath with red wine added to it! I soaked in it for 10 minutes.
The massage was nice, but then I wanted my reflexology massage and was told I’d had it and it had been combined. I said I hadn’t had the full amount of time I was supposed to be paying for and I knew what a reflexology massage was too, so I got another half hour, but after having a row with the manager about it, I was hardly relaxed. It was expensive too, but it was yet another example of an inferior establishment in Georgia trying to take advantage of “rich” Western tourists.
Comparing the experience I’d had in Tbilisi to the one in Telavi, I would say, definitely do the traditional sulphur baths in Tbilisi. I have been to a lot of spas around the world and the one in Telavi was not in my Top 10, although soaking in a bath of red wine was a new experience for me! It wasn’t worth the journey to Telavi to do that though and the massage was certainly nothing special. I will say that the lunch was quite nice and the wines were good quality. But again, it wasn’t worth going to Telavi for.
However, I did enjoy my sulphur bath and massage in Tbilisi. It was a genuine Georgian experience. I was in a traditional sulphur bath house by the river in the Atanubani District of the capital and I would recommend trying it out if you’re in Tbilisi. It is one of the things that you should experience here. Just hope you turn up at a quiet time when the staff are trying to draw customers in and then you won’t get the rude attitude I got when they were busier. It would be a shame if that put you off.
In case you’re wondering if Telavi itself is worth visiting, whilst in Telavi I also went to a small winery and a palace.
The lady who ran the guesthouse in Telavi, which was a comfortable guesthouse with a decent breakfast, told me I’d need a day to look around the town and said she had a driver who could take me round for some extortionate price. I’d had enough of being taken advantage of because everyone thought I was a rich Westerner, so I politely declined and walked into the town on my own. And there was no way you needed a day to look round there. I got a smelly, broken down taxi (which are generally the only kind available in Georgia) to take me to the winery and palace.
I was told I should have a wine tour even if I’d been to other wineries, because then you get to see the qvevri method of wine making. The qvevri method is the traditional Georgian way of making wine, instead of oak barrels they use clay pots and they don’t add any sulphur or anything. Except there’s nothing really to see and they don’t tell you much either. The only thing I learned was that these clay pots they ferment the wine in are buried underground. I was shown around the tiny museum and saw the oak barrels and the clay pots in the ground. The wine was fermenting at that time. They only made white qvevri wine at this winery, which is an amber colour and tastes like sherry. It wasn’t my favourite. I tried 3 wines that were made French style. They were okay, none of them blew me away.
I then went next door to the Chavchavadze Palace, which wasn’t what I’d call a palace. It actually looked like a plantation house you’d find in the American Deep South or the Caribbean. It was the home of Georgian nobleman, diplomat and poet, Alexandre Chavchavadze and the house is now a museum with some original furniture. I looked around the half dozen rooms of the house that you can see, had a walk around the very pleasant and quiet grounds and ended up in the bar, sampling more wine. I was in the wine region, so it seemed the logical thing to do.
After the rave reviews from Lonely Planet about the palace, I was expecting more. It was pleasant enough, but it was hardly worth the journey out to Eastern Georgia. So I wouldn’t particularly recommend visiting Telavi and its environs if you come to Georgia.
It had been my experience in general, every tourist attraction in Georgia featured in the guidebook was overhyped. I suppose they need to be, otherwise no one would come here! I sound like a right whinger, don’t I? It had just been really frustrating battling to try and get anywhere and not get ripped off.
When I went back to Tbilisi in a shared taxi the next day, for once the taxi was fairly tidy and the driver wasn’t a total maniac. I was first to the taxi so I grabbed the front seat, so I wasn’t cramped in the back. This bloke came along about 20 minutes later and opened the front door and tried to get me to sit in the back because he wanted to sit in the front. I refused to move. I was not going to sit for an hour and a half in the middle on the back seat because he wanted the front seat. That’s what I mean about everything being a battle. It was very stressful. But I was going back to Tbilisi which was somewhere I was starting to enjoy and I was certainly confident finding my way around there now.
I travelled to Georgia during the first half of October 2016.
I had my sulphur bath and massage at King Erekle’s Baths in the Abanotubani District of Tblisi.
Telavi is located in the Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia, approximately 2 hours from Tbilisi. Collective taxis and minibuses travel between the two destinations regularly.
I had my spa treatments and wine tasting at Schuchmann Wines winery, hotel, restaurant and spa. Schuchmann Wines is a short taxi ride away from the centre of Telavi.
You can also taste wine and tour the historic Chavchavadze Palace at the Tsinandali Estate located a 15 minute taxi ride from central Telavi.
I stayed at Marinella Guesthouse in Telavi with breakfast included.
I flew to Georgia on a Wizz Air flight to Kutaisi from Budapest, Hungary. This was a cheaper alternative to flying to the capital, Tbilisi.
I flew to Budapest from Manchester Airport with Jet2.
Read about my other experiences in Georgia.
The Hilltops of Tbilisi
Davit Gareja Cliff Monastery Complex
Into the Caucasus Mountains – Kazbegi Region
If you ever are in Georgia – take care! Read about my encounter with the Georgian police when I was unlucky enough to be the victim of a pickpocket.
Reporting a Theft – A Cautionary Tale
Read about my spa experience in Austria
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa
Read about another wine tasting experience I had in Liechtenstein
Wine Tasting in the Prince’s Cellar
