Apparently, we don’t know how to plan a travel holiday for kids, or so we’ve been told. With that in mind, we challenged the kids to do better and plan our next day out in Tbilisi. Here’s what they came up with.
First up was the Experimentorium - Museum of Entertaining Science. It cost us 39 GEL (about NZ$20) to get in and view over 80 interactive science-related (mostly physics) exhibits.
Belle phoning a friend for help on the day’s activities
Emmy looking a bit confused about the apparatus in front of her
All up, there’s about an hour to an hour and a half of stuff to do and the way the kids were charging around they definitely were enjoying it. Most of the exhibits were interesting for us as adults too, so it definitely was a good way to start the day off.
The concept of weight distribution
Belle looking into the future to see what else might be in front of us
Per usual, all that thinking had made everyone thirsty and hungry. The girls had thoughtfully factored this in and scheduled a refueling stop where Emmy got a milkshake and Belle got a coffee with ice cream. Certainly not something they normally get when we’re in charge!
When the beers the cheapest drink on the menu, go for the beer
While heading to the next activity we stumbled upon the Meidan Bazaar which was helpful in getting us across the busy Metkhi Bridge Road. If you’re looking for souvenirs, this is definitely the place to come and shop with hundreds, if not thousands, of different options available all in one convenient location. Historically, the Tbilisi marketplace used to be located here, so there’s a bit of history behind the place but you’d need to scratch really, really hard to find it now.
A great place for last minute souvenir shopping
Emerging from the other side of the underground tunnel we spied the Statue of King Vakhtang Gorgasali in front of the Metekhi Church of Assumption. The 32nd King of Iberia in the 5th/6th century AD, Kakhtang I was credited with founding Tbilisi and is an extremely popular figure from Georgian history.
With no time to spare looking at “boring” stuff, we continued our kids day out by heading to the Museum of Illusions, which is located back up in the Betlemi Street area.
Anybody who’s ever been to Wanaka with kids and visited Puzzling World, will instantly recognise some of the interactive displays here.
Dancing on the ceiling
There were also a number of displays which were downright scary, like this one with six Annabelles. I’m still recovering from this thought.
The noise, the noise!!!
Hypnotising Belle
Again, this Museum was one which the kids absolutely loved and for the same price as the previous excursion (39 GEL for the family), it was much a cheaper visit than Puzzling World!
Quiet - small brains working hard here
In fairness to Puzzling World, The Museum of Illusions is definitely smaller, but there is still enough to entertain for well over an hour.
All up, we thought the girls did a great job of research and planning our day out and coming up with ideas for when our friends arrived. As there was still time in the day left, I thought it’d be a good idea to check out one more thing during my run, by taking in the Abanotubani district. This actually was only a short walk from where we were in Betlemi Street, but having not realised it at the time, we didn’t visit then.
As it turns out, the Abanotubani district is what gave the city its name and houses a number of Middle/Central Eastern-inspired sulphur baths.
Orbeliani Baths
Right beside the baths, where you can get a good scrubbing and massage, lies a small gorge with water running from the Leghvtakhevi Waterfall upstream. You can walk/run along the paths beside the gorge over a number of bridges, the best being the padlocked bridge where couples can demonstrate their unbreakable love for one another by adding a padlock to the bridge.
View back down the gorge
That’s a lot of undying love on the bridge
It’s only a short walk to the waterfall (and free to enter) and whilst it’s a lesser known area of Tbilisi the secret is definitely out of the bag and there was probably a dozen or so other tourists and locals appreciating this nice spot.
Leghvtakhevi Waterfall
With our wee taster of Tbilisi coming to an end, we’re now thinking about our journey up to the mountains for our next adventure in the Kazbegi region.