Narikala is an ancient fortress overlooking Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and the Kura River. The fortress consists of two walled sections on a steep hill between the sulphur baths and the botanical gardens of Tbilisi. On the lower court there is the recently restored St Nicholas church. Newly built in 1996–1997, it replaces the original 13th-century church that was destroyed in a fire. The new church is of "prescribed cross" type, having doors on three sides. The internal part of the church is decorated with the frescos showing scenes both from the Bible and history of Georgia.

The fortress was established in the 4th century as Shuris-tsikhe (i.e., "Invidious Fort"). It was considerably expanded by the Umayyads in the 7th century and later, by king David the Builder (1089–1125). The Mongols renamed it "Narin Qala" (i.e., "Little Fortress"). Most of extant fortifications date from the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1827, parts of the fortress were damaged by an earthquake and demolished.

The Sulphur Baths in Abanotubani, in the midst of the old town in Tbilisi are famed to be the source of the city’s existence. When the city was contained within walls, visiting merchants along the spice route were ordered to use one of the 64 baths before they were allowed to enter. The name Tbilisi comes from the Georgian word for warm ‘თბილი—tbili’ so the site of the city was probably dictated by the location of the hot, sulphurous springs. Legend has it that in the 5th century, King Vakhtang Gorgasali’s hunting falcon brought back a pheasant which had been poached in the warm water and ordered his capital moved there. There is evidence that the Romans, legendary bathers, settled here too. The number of baths have dwindled to a handful but are still a fascinating sight from outside with their brick domes rising up out of the ground. The water, full of natural therapeutic minerals, springs from the ground at about 40 C. Poets and writers have bathed away their days (and hangovers) there including Pushkin and Dumas.

The district was one of the earliest inhabited areas on the city’s territory. According to traditional accounts, King Vakhtang I Gorgasali erected here a church and a fort which served also as a king’s residence; hence comes the name Metekhi which dates back to the 12th century and literally means “the area around the palace”. Tradition holds that it was also a site where the 5th-century martyr lady Saint Shushanik was buried. However, none of these structures have survived the Mongol invasion of 1235.

The Metekhi cliff and surroundings by a Russian painter N. G. Chernetsov, 1839. Opposite is seen the "Shah-Abbas Mosque" (1600s)
The extant Metekhi Church of Assumption, resting upon the top of the hill, was built by the Georgian king St Demetrius II circa 1278–1284 and is somewhat an unusual example of domed Georgian Orthodox church. It was later damaged and restored several times. King Rostom (r. 1633-1658) fortified the area around the church with a strong citadel garrisoned by some 3,000 soldiers. Under the Russian rule (established in 1801), the church lost its religious purpose and was used as a barracks (R. G. Suny, p. 93). The citadel was demolished in 1819 and replaced by a new building which functioned as the infamous jail down to the Soviet era, and was closed only in 1938.

The Metekhi cliff at night in 2013.
Amid the Great Purges, the Georgian Communist chief Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria intended to destroy the church as well, but met a stubborn opposition by a group of Georgian intellectuals led by the painter and art collector Dimitri Shevardnadze. Beria replied to their urges, that it would surely be enough to preserve a scale model of the church so that people could see it in a museum, and then is said to have told Shevardnadze privately that if he gave up his efforts to save the church he would be appointed director of the future museum. The artist refused and was imprisoned and executed (Ami Knight, p. 84). The building was preserved, however. In the later part of Soviet period the church was used as a theatre. The equestrian statue of King Vakhtang I Gorgaslan by the sculptor Elguja Amashukeli was erected in front of the church in 1961.

In the late 1980s, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II launched a popularly supported campaign aiming at the restoration of the church to the Georgian Patriarchate. A well-known dissident and the future president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia went on a hunger strike in support of this demand. Despite initial resistance from the local Communist leadership, the church became functioning again in 1988.

The Sioni Cathedral of the Dormition (Georgian: სიონის ღვთისმშობლის მიძინების ტაძარი) is a Georgian Orthodox cathedral in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Following a medieval Georgian tradition of naming churches after particular places in the Holy Land, the Sioni Cathedral bears the name of Mount Zion at Jerusalem. It is commonly known as the "Tbilisi Sioni" to distinguish it from several other churches across Georgia bearing the name Sioni.

The Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral is situated in historic Sionis Kucha (Sioni Street) in downtown Tbilisi, with its eastern façade fronting the right embankment of the Kura River. It was initially built in the 6th and 7th centuries. Since then, it has been destroyed by foreign invaders and reconstructed several times. The current church is based on a 13th-century version with some changes from the 17th to 19th centuries. The Sioni Cathedral was the main Georgian Orthodox Cathedral and the seat of Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia until the Holy Trinity Cathedral was consecrated in 2004.

Sioni Cathedral as seen from the right side of the Kura River, 1870s
According to medieval Georgian annals, the construction of the original church on this site was initiated by King Vakhtang Gorgasali in the 5th century. A hundred years later, Guaram, the prince of Iberia (Kartli), in c. 575 began building a new structure, which was completed by his successor Adarnase in circa 639. According to legend, both princes were buried in this church, but no trace of their graves has been found. This early church was completely destroyed by Arabs, and was subsequently built de novo.

The cathedral was completely rebuilt by King David the Builder in 1112. The basic elements of the existing structure date from this period. It was heavily damaged in 1226, when its dome was ruined on the order of Jalal ad Din Mingburnu. It was subsequently repaired, but damaged again by Timur in 1386 and repaired by King Alexander I. It was again damaged during the Persian invasion in the 17th century.

19th-century sectional drawing showing Grigory Gagarin's frescoes
In 1657, the Metropolitan of Tbilisi, Elise Saginashvili (died 1670), substantially restored the cupola and added the southern chapel, but the structure was again devastated in 1668, this time by earthquake. The regent of Kartli, batonishvili (prince) Vakhtang, carried out restorations of the cupola and cathedral walls in 1710. However, the church was again damaged by the invasion of the Persians in 1795.

The cathedral's interior took on a different look between 1850 and 1860, when the Russian artist and general Knyaz Grigory Gagarin (1810–1893) composed an interesting series of the murals, though a number of medieval frescoes were lost[clarification needed] in the process. A portion of the murals on the western wall were executed by the Georgian artist Levan Tsutskiridze in the 1980s.

The stone iconostasis dates to the 1850s. It replaced the wooden iconostasis burned during the Persian invasion in 1795. To the left of the altar is the venerated Grapevine cross which, according to tradition, was forged by Saint Nino, a Cappadocian woman who preached Christianity in the Caucasus in the early 4th century. King Vakhtang III gave the reliquary itself in the early 14th century.

The Sioni Cathedral was where the Russian Imperial manifesto on the annexation of Georgia was first published. On April 12, 1802 the Russian commander-in-chief in Georgia, General Karl von Knorring, assembled the Georgian nobles in the Cathedral, which was then surrounded by Russian troops. The nobles were forced to take an oath to the Russian Imperial crown; any who disagreed were taken into custody.

Sioni Cathedral remained functional through Soviet times, and was partially renovated between 1980 and 1983.

The National Botanical Garden of Georgia (Georgian: საქართველოს ეროვნული ბოტანიკური ბაღი), formerly the Tbilisi Botanical Garden (თბილისის ბოტანიკური ბაღი) is located in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, and lie in the Tsavkisis-Tskali Gorge on the southern foothills of the Sololaki Range (a spur of the Trialeti Range). It occupies the area of 161 hectares and possesses a collection of over 4,500 taxonomic groups.

Its history spans more than three centuries. It was first described, in 1671, by the French traveler Jean Chardin as royal gardens which might have been founded at least in 1625 and were variably referred to as "fortress gardens" or "Seidabad gardens" later in history. The gardens appear in the records by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1701) and on the Tbilisi map composed by Prince Vakhushti (1735). Pillaged in the Persian invasion of 1795, the garden was revived in the early 19th century and officially established as the Tiflis Botanical Garden in 1845.

From 1888 on, when a floristics center was set up, Yuri Voronov and several other notable scholars have worked for the Garden. Between 1896 and 1904, the Garden was expanded further westward. Between 1932 and 1958, the territory around the former Muslim cemetery was included in the botanical garden. Several graves have survived, however, including that of the prominent Azerbaijanian writer Mirza Fatali Akhundov (1812-1878). The central entrance to the Garden is located at the foothills of the Narikala Fortress. The other, cut through the rock as a long tunnel in 1909-14, had been functional until the mid-2000s.