David Gareja Monastery 2026: What Is Open and How to Go

From Tbilisi by road

110 km

Drive time

1.5-2 h

Entry

Free

Gareji Line bus

40 GEL

David Gareja is the day trip we send people on when they think Georgia is all mountains and wine. The monastery is 1,500 years old, the landscape is a striped semi-desert that belongs in Central Asia, and the border runs along the ridge above the church. That border is also why the trip needs a current guide: since June 2019 the upper monastery has been off limits, and older articles still describe a ridge walk you cannot do. Everything below was checked on 8 September 2026 against wander-lush.org's March 2026 visit report, the Gareji Line operator's own pages, GetYourGuide's listings, gotrip.ge and the Wikipedia history; the road, the bus fare and the closure are the things that change, and all three are current. USD figures use the National Bank of Georgia rate on 8 September 2026 (1 USD = 2.61 GEL).

What is open and what is closed

Fifteen centuries in short

David of Gareja was one of the thirteen Assyrian Fathers, Syrian monks who came to Georgia in the sixth century to strengthen its young church, and he chose the emptiest place he could find. Over the following centuries the monks cut hundreds of cells, chapels, refectories and churches into the soft sandstone across the whole Gareja range, and by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the complex was one of the country's great centres of learning and painting. The frescoes at Udabno, with their portrait of Queen Tamar, date from that golden age. In 1615 a Safavid army under Shah Abbas massacred the monks and destroyed the manuscripts; the monastery never fully recovered. In the Soviet period the range became a military training ground during the Afghan war, and shelling damaged the murals until protests in 1987 and 1988 got the army base removed. The complex is on UNESCO's tentative World Heritage list, and monks live at the Lavra again.

The Lavra

The Lavra is the monastery you reach from the car park, a walled compound stepping up the slope in terraces. The heart of it is the cave church holding St David's tomb: small, dark, worn smooth by pilgrims, and a place people still come to pray rather than photograph. From it, stairs and wooden galleries lead through several levels of cells, some barely big enough to lie down in, others opening into rooms with carved niches and views over the steppe. Restoration has been under way for years, so expect some scaffolding, and expect to be turned around by a guard if you climb more than a couple of hundred metres up the hill behind the compound, which is where the closed ridge trail begins.

The Rainbow Hills

What saves the trip now that the frescoes are out of reach is the landscape. The hills around Udabno are banded in red, ochre, cream and grey, layers of clay and sandstone laid down under a sea and tilted as the Caucasus rose, then carved into rounded ridges by rain. The small ones are a short walk from the road just outside Udabno village; the big amphitheatre of them is around the Mravaltskaro reservoir to the north-west, reached by dirt tracks that are fine for any car when dry and hopeless for anything after rain. There are no marked trails, no shade and no water, so walk with a hat, two litres each and a downloaded map, and go late in the afternoon when the low sun brings the colours up. In late April and May the steppe between the hills is briefly green and full of flowers; by July it is brown, and the ground radiates heat.

Getting there

There is no marshrutka. The road is the news: it is now paved the whole way from Tbilisi through Sagarejo and Udabno to the monastery car park, with a short compact-gravel stretch near Udabno, so any car can do it. Take the Kakheti highway east, turn south at Sagarejo, and count on 1.5 to 2 hours for about 110 km. The old route via Rustavi is shorter on the map and slower in practice. Fill up in Sagarejo, download the map before you leave (signal drops after Udabno) and bring cash, because the car park cafe and the village shops do not always take cards.

Udabno village and staying over

Udabno is the last village before the monastery, a small settlement on the open steppe. It matters for two reasons. The Rainbow Hills start at its edge, and the Oasis Club is the one place to eat or sleep out here: a restaurant with Georgian and European food, a hostel and seven cottages with terraces facing the steppe, run for years by a Polish couple and still taking bookings in 2026. Staying the night turns the trip into something better than a day trip: hills at sunset, a sky with no light pollution, and the Lavra before the tour buses at 11:00.

Natlismtsemeli

The monastery of John the Baptist is the other cave complex you can still enter, about 10 km north-west of the Lavra across the steppe. It is reached by a long rocky track that needs a high-clearance 4WD, or a two- to three-hour round-trip walk with no shade; the track is unmarked, so a downloaded map is essential. The reward is a monastery of the same age as the Lavra with frescoes you can actually see, a handful of monks and, usually, nobody else. Add two hours to the day.

When to go

April and May are the best months: the steppe is green, the hills are at their most colourful and the temperature is comfortable for walking. September and October are the second choice, dry and warm with the summer crowds gone. Summer is hard work: there is no shade anywhere, the rock stores heat, and the only sensible plan is to leave Tbilisi at dawn and be back in the car by noon with far more water than feels reasonable. Winter is possible on a clear day but the wind on the open plateau is bitter and the tracks to the reservoir and Natlismtsemeli turn to mud. Whatever the season, go late in the day for the hills and early for the monastery.

A day that works

Leave Tbilisi by 08:00 with a full tank and lunch. Coffee in Sagarejo, then the road south across the steppe. Lavra at about 10:00, before the shuttle and the tours arrive around midday; give it 90 minutes. Drive back to Udabno for lunch at the Oasis Club, then spend the afternoon in the hills, either the ones by the village or, if the ground is dry, the reservoir. With a 4WD, swap the afternoon for Natlismtsemeli. Head back at 17:00, or stay in Udabno and see the hills at sunset. Two days with a night in Udabno, or a loop that continues to Sighnaghi for the night and back via the Kakheti wine road, is the version we would do again.

Common mistakes

• Going for the frescoes. The ones you have read about are at Udabno, which is closed. The Lavra has the tomb, the caves and the landscape.
• Trying the ridge anyway. Border guards will stop you, and the situation is sensitive. Do not.
• Midday in July. No shade, no water, hot rock. Go at dawn or in another season.
• No cash, no map, no water. The cafe and shops are cash-first, signal ends at Udabno, and there is nothing to drink on site.
• Dropping a taxi. There are no taxis at the monastery. Fix a wait-and-return price or take the shuttle.
• Reaching into caves. The steppe has vipers; watch your feet and your hands.

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