Mtskheta Gori Uplistsikhe - All Inclusive Tour

Mtskheta Gori Uplistsikhe - All Inclusive Tour

Tour is offered by the professional, global Travel Company 3Line Group, which provides only ALL-INCLUSIVE and ORGANISED tours in GEORGIA and 10 more other countries.

This tour includes all activities, which helps travellers to discover Georgian traditions, beauty, hospitality, degustation of Georgian wine and Cuisine! We can make your holidays unbelievable and joyful.

Do not miss your chance and travel with 3LINE. We are happy to be your HOST!

PAY ONCE, GET EVERYTHING!

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Arsukidze, Mtskheta 383400 Georgia

The original church was built in 4th century A.D. during the reign of Mirian III of Kartli (Iberia). St. Nino is said to have chosen the confluence of the Mtkvari (Kura) and Aragvi rivers as the place of the first Georgian Church. According to Georgian hagiography, in the 1st century AD, a Georgian Jew from Mtskheta named Elias was in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. Elias bought Jesus’ robe from a Roman soldier at Golgotha and brought it back to Georgia. Returning to his native city, he was met by his sister Sidonia who upon touching the robe immediately died from the emotions engendered by the sacred object. The robe could not be removed from her grasp, so she was buried with it. The place where Sidonia is buried with Christ's robe is preserved in the Cathedral. Later, from her grave grew an enormous cedar tree. Ordering the cedar chopped down to build the church, St. Nino had seven columns made from it for the church’s foundation. The seventh column, however, had magical properties and rose by itself into the air. It returned to earth after St. Nino prayed the whole night. It was further said that from the magical seventh column a sacred liquid flowed that cured people of all diseases. In Georgian sveti means "pillar" and tskhoveli means "life-giving" or "living", hence the name of the cathedral. An icon portraying this event can be seen in the second column on the right-hand from the entrance. Reproduced widely throughout Georgia, it shows Sidonia with an angel lifting the column in heaven. Saint Nino is in the foreground: King Mirian and his wife, Queen Nana, are to the right and left. Georgia officially adopted Christianity as its state religion in 337.

Duration: 40 minutes

Stop At: Jvari Church, Mtskheta Georgia

Jvari Monastery stands on the rocky mountaintop at the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers, overlooking the town of Mtskheta, which was formerly the capital of the Kingdom of Iberia. According to traditional accounts, on this location in the early 4th century Saint Nino, a female evangelist credited with converting King Mirian III of Iberia to Christianity erected a large wooden cross on the site of a pagan temple. The cross was reportedly able to work miracles and therefore drew pilgrims from all over the Caucasus. A small church was erected over the remnants of the wooden cross in c.545 named the "Small Church of Jvari". The present building, or "Great Church of Jvari", is generally held to have been built between 590 and 605 by Erismtavari Stepanoz I. This is based on the Jvari inscriptions on its facade which mentions the principal builders of the church: Stephanos the Patricius, Demetrius the Hypatos, and Adarnase the Hypatos. Professor Cyril Toumanoff disagrees with this view, identifying these individuals as Stepanoz II, Demetre (brother of Stepanoz I), and Adarnase II (son of Stepanoz II), respectively. The importance of Jvari complex increased over time and attracted many pilgrims. In the late Middle Ages, the complex was fortified by a stone wall and gate, remnants of which still survive. During the Soviet period, the church was preserved as a national monument, but access was rendered difficult by tight security at a nearby military base. After the independence of Georgia, the building was restored to active religious use. Jvari was listed together with other monuments of Mtskheta in 1994 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Duration: 1 hour

Stop At: Stalin Museum, 32 Stalin Avenue, Gori Georgia

The house, where Stalin's parents rented a single room, stands in front of the main museum building, under its own temple-like superstructure.

The museum charts Stalin’s journey from the Gori church school to the leadership of the USSR, the Yalta Conference at the end of WWII and his death in 1953. The first hall upstairs covers his childhood and adolescence, including his rather cringeworthy pastoral poetry, and then his early revolutionary activities in Georgia, his seven jail terms under the tsarist authorities (six of them in Siberia), the revolution of 1917 and Lenin’s death in 1924. The text of Lenin’s 1922 political testament that described Stalin as too coarse and power-hungry, advising Communist Party members to remove him from the post of General Secretary, is on display.

To one side of the museum is Stalin’s train carriage, in which he travelled to Yalta in 1945 (he didn’t like flying). Apparently bulletproof, its elegant interior includes a bathtub and a primitive air-conditioning system.

Duration: 1 hour

Stop At: Gori Fortress, Gori Georgia

Gori Fortress is a medieval citadel in Georgia, standing above the city of Gori on a rocky hill.

The fortress first appears in the 13th-century records but archaeological evidence shows that the area had already been fortified in the last centuries BC. The fortress controlled major strategic and economic routes and accommodated a large garrison. In the 16th century, the Ottomans captured it to overawe Tbilisi. In 1598 the Georgians besieged it to no avail; in 1599 they feigned a relaxation of the siege for Lent before launching a surprise attack at night to regain the citadel. The fortress continued to change hands between the Georgians and the Persians in the 17th century.

Gori Fortress was significantly damaged by the earthquake in 1920. The best-preserved structure is Tskhra-kara, which looks to the west, and is adjoined by the supplementary walls on the south and east.

Duration: 1 hour

Stop At: Uplistsiche Cave Town, Kvakhvreli 15 km Eastwards to Town Gori, Gori Georgia

Uplistsikhe is an ancient rock-hewn town in eastern Georgia, some 10 kilometres east of the town of Gori, Shida Kartli. Built on a high rocky left bank of the Mtkvari River, it contains various structures dating from the Early Iron Age to the Late Middle Ages and is notable for the unique combination of various styles of rock-cut cultures from Anatolia and Iran, as well as the co-existence of pagan and Christian architecture. Uplistsikhe is identified by archaeologists as one of the oldest urban settlements in Georgia. Strategically located in the heartland of the ancient kingdom of Kartli, it emerged as a major political and religious centre of the country. The town’s age and importance led medieval Georgian written tradition to ascribe its foundation to the mythical Uplos, son of Mtskhetos, and grandson of Kartlos. The Uplistsikhe complex can tentatively be divided into three parts: south (lower), middle (central) and north (upper) covering an area of approximately 8 hectares. The middle part is the largest, contains a bulk of the Uplistsikhe rock-cut structures, and is connected to the southern part via a narrow rock-cut pass and a tunnel. Narrow alleys and sometimes staircases radiate from the central "street" to the different structures. The majority of the caves are devoid of any decorations, although some of the larger structures have coffered tunnel-vaulted ceilings, with the stone carved in imitation of logs. Some of the larger structures also have niches in the back or sides, which may have been used for ceremonial purposes.


Duration: 1 hour