Tbilisi Sulfur Baths Guide 2026: Prices, Bathhouses, Kisa

Private room

from 130 GEL/h

Public bath

6-10 GEL

Kisa scrub

15-30 GEL

Water

38-40°C

The sulfur baths are not just a Tbilisi attraction. By legend they are the reason Tbilisi exists. In the 5th century, the story goes, King Vakhtang Gorgasali was out hunting when his falcon chased a pheasant into a hot spring and both came out cooked. The king built a city on the spot and named it from tbili, the Georgian word for warm. Whether the falcon existed does not matter. The hot, sulfurous water coming out of the ground is real, and people have been sitting in it here for 1,500 years.

The bath district, Abanotubani, sits at the bottom of the Old Town below Narikala fortress. You will recognise it by the brick domes poking out of the ground like half-buried eggs. Underneath them are tiled rooms fed by water that comes out of the rock at 38 to 40°C. You will smell the rotten-egg whiff before you see anything. That is hydrogen sulfide, it is harmless, and you stop noticing it after a few minutes.

Prices, hours and room sizes below were read from the bathhouses' own booking pages and a survey of the district updated in February 2026, checked on 7 September 2026. USD conversions use the National Bank of Georgia rate that day (2.61 GEL to the dollar).

Public or private

This is the first decision, and it produces two completely different experiences.

If you have the time and the nerve, do both. The public bath is the closer of the two to how the city has used these springs for centuries: a tiled hall full of steam and strangers who could not care less that you are there. Private rooms are more comfortable but the cheapest ones can feel clinical. The better rooms at Chreli Abano, Gulo's and the Royal Bath House have arched brick ceilings, mosaic tiles and enough space that you forget you are underground.

Which bathhouse to choose

There is no single best bathhouse. It depends on your budget, your group size and whether you want a public hall at all. The main options, with the room prices each one published or quoted in 2026:

Chreli Abano (Orbeliani Baths)

The most famous bathhouse in the city and the one on every postcard: the blue-tiled Persian facade at the top of Abano Street. It is the most polished option, with a booking site, a spa menu and a restaurant delivering to the rooms. On its booking page in September 2026 the smallest room (No. 6, for one or two people, hot pool only) was 130 GEL an hour, a three-person room 160 GEL, and the six-person rooms, including the Pushkin and Dumas rooms with hot and cold pools and a Finnish sauna, 200 GEL. The VIP apartment for up to nine is 500 GEL and the Royal Apartment for twelve, with Finnish and Turkish saunas and a massage room, 600 GEL. Massages run 100 to 250 GEL. The kisa scrub is 30 GEL, the highest in the district, paid in cash.

Gulo's Thermal Spa

At the end of the Abano I dead end, Gulo's is the cleanest and most modern of the traditional bathhouses, with eight private rooms done in Roman and Arabic styles, towels and hairdryers included and tea on the house. Rooms run 150 to 300 GEL an hour, a kisa is 20 GEL and it is open until 03:00, which makes it the answer if you land late. Booking is by phone or Facebook Messenger, not online.

Royal Bath House

On Grishashvili Street, a minute from the domes. Five rooms, all with a hot pool and free Wi-Fi: Room 5 (up to four people) is 150 GEL an hour, Room 4 is 160 GEL, Room 1 (up to six, hot and cold pools) is 190 GEL, Room 3 adds a sauna for 230 GEL, and Room 2 is a 180 square metre suite for up to eight with hot and cold pools and a sauna for 290 GEL. Prices come from its own site, which takes bookings. The kisa is 15 GEL and towel hire 2 GEL. Despite the name it has no public hall: an earlier version of this guide said it did, and it was wrong.

King Erekle's Bath

Run by the same group as Chreli Abano, at the same Abano Street 2 address, and pitched a notch higher: a Junior room for up to three is 200 GEL, three Premium rooms for up to five are 250 GEL, and the King Erekle apartment for seven is 400 GEL. Bath accessories are not included in the room price. It is the quieter of the two and rarely full.

Bath No. 5

Next to Heydar Aliyev Park, and the one to pick for the public hall. It dates from 1925 (there is a hammer and sickle over the door) and some rooms keep their Soviet mosaics. The public bath costs 6 to 10 GEL, the women's hall has no pool, and the kisa is 10 to 20 GEL. Private rooms run 120 to 200 GEL, with a separate VIP room at 200 GEL booked by phone. Reviews are the most mixed of any bathhouse because the rooms vary so much. Walk in for the public bath; ask to see a private room before you pay for it.

Bohema, Kyiv and the cheap end

Bohema, the old Mirzoyev bath at the end of the Abano II dead end, has the cheapest private rooms in the district at 70 to 200 GEL, a 20 GEL kisa and 10 GEL tea. If you do not need the domes, the Kyiv Sulfur Spa on Kiev Street in Chugureti, across the river, charges 90 to 120 GEL a room with massages from 30 GEL and stays open until 02:00. The Queen's Bath, historically the cheapest public hall at 5 GEL, was closed for refurbishment when the district was surveyed in February 2026.

The kisa scrub: what actually happens

The kisa (also spelled kisi or kese) is the signature treatment, and unless you are sunburned you should have it. It is not relaxing in the spa sense. It is closer to being vigorously cleaned by someone with strong opinions about your skin.

You soak in the hot pool for 15 to 20 minutes until your skin softens. Then the mekise, the scrub attendant, arrives: usually a stocky person who radiates the energy of someone who has done this ten thousand times. You lie on a warm stone slab. They pull on a rough mitt, the kisa, and scrub every inch of you with a force that feels alarming for the first minute. Dead skin comes off in visible grey rolls. It is disgusting and deeply satisfying at the same time. After the scrub they lather you in soap foam, wash you down and send you back to the pool. The whole thing takes 10 to 15 minutes and your skin feels like it belongs to someone younger.

What happens, step by step

1. 1

   Arrive and pay

   Pay for the room at reception (cards are accepted at the larger bathhouses) and say now if you want a kisa. For a private room you are shown straight to it. For the public bath you go through to a communal changing hall.

2. 2

   Change

   Private rooms have a dry area with hooks, a bench and somewhere to leave your bag. Public baths have lockers or a watched shelf. Swimsuits are optional in private rooms and unusual in the public halls; if in doubt, ask.

3. 3

   Soak

   The pool is 38 to 40°C, hot but not unbearable. Give it 15 to 20 minutes before the scrub so the skin softens. If the room has a cold plunge, alternate.

4. 4

   Scrub

   The mekise comes to your room, or waves you over in the public hall. Lie on the slab, try to relax, and let them work. It is over in a quarter of an hour.

5. 5

   Rinse and go again

   Shower off the foam, then get back in the pool. Most people soak, scrub and soak again. Rooms with a sauna: five minutes in the dry heat between soaks.

6. 6

   Wind down

   Order tea (the traditional pairing) or, at Chreli Abano and the Royal Bath House, food from the menu. Dry off slowly. Walk out into the evening air feeling like a different species.

Etiquette and what to bring

Health claims: what is real

Georgians will tell you the sulfur baths cure everything from arthritis to heartbreak. Chreli Abano's own visitor guide lists a page of chronic conditions the water is "successfully used" for. The honest version:

What you will actually spend

When to go

The baths are open all year, but the season changes the experience more than you would expect.

Getting to Abanotubani

Abanotubani is walking distance from anywhere in the Old Town, at the bottom of the gorge below Narikala, next to the lower entrance of the Botanical Garden. Head for Gorgasali Square (the big square by the Metekhi bridge) and the domes are a hundred metres up Abano Street.

Bolt fares here are the ranges we see in the app; the airport figures are from our airport guide, checked this month.

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