Mtatsminda Park and the Tbilisi Funicular: Getting Up, Prices and the View

Tbilisi is known for its views, and the biggest one is from Mtatsminda, the mountain with the red and white TV tower on top. Up there sits Mtatsminda Park: a Ferris wheel, rides, restaurants and the entire city spread out below. Here's what you need to know about the funicular, the new cable car, the hike up, what an evening costs and when to go.

What Mtatsminda Park is and who it suits

Mtatsminda means "holy mountain", and it is the ridge that closes off the west side of central Tbilisi. It is the highest point in the city, and the TV tower on its summit is the landmark you will use to find your bearings all week. The park on top is part amusement park, part viewing terrace and part evening out: a Ferris wheel over 60 m tall, a roller coaster, bumper cars, a long run of children's rides, a wax museum, snack stands and the arched upper funicular station with its restaurants.

Getting up is half the point. A funicular has climbed the mountain since 1905, and since October 2024 a cable car runs up from Rustaveli Avenue as well. Below the summit, the funicular stops at the Mtatsminda Pantheon, where Georgia buries its writers and national figures.

Who I'd send up:

• First-time visitors who want the one view that shows all of Tbilisi at once: the old town, the river, Sameba's gold dome and the newer districts beyond.
• Families, because the rides are cheap, the paths at the top are flat and children treat the funicular as the main event.
• Couples after a sunset and a dinner table with the city lights underneath.
• Walkers who would rather earn the view on the trails up from the Pantheon or Sololaki.

Who can skip it: anyone with two days in the city who already watched the sunset from the Narikala ridge, and anyone who hates crowds on a summer weekend evening.

How to get up Mtatsminda: five ways compared

There are five ways to the top, and they differ more in what you see than in how long they take. This is all of them side by side.

The bus runs on the same card as Tbilisi's metro and buses, so if you already carry Metromoney it is the one way up that needs no new ticket. A taxi follows the paved road that winds round the back of the mountain to the park gates, which is the easy option with a pushchair or a tired grandparent.

The Tbilisi funicular: price, park card and queue

The funicular is still how most people go up, and it is the version of Mtatsminda I would pick for a first visit. The lower station is at 22 Daniel Chonkadze Street, a few steep blocks above Rustaveli Avenue. The car climbs 235 m in a few minutes and makes one stop halfway, at the Pantheon and Mama Daviti Church.

The fare is about 10 to 12 GEL per person one way as of October 2026. The funicular sits outside the city transport network, so Metromoney does not work at the gate and you can't pay the ride in cash. Instead you buy a Mtatsminda Park card for 2 GEL at the lower station, load it at the window and tap it through. One card can pay for a whole group, so a couple or a family needs just one.

The same card pays for every ride at the top, and top-up points inside the park are few. I load enough at the bottom for the ride down and the rides I plan, which saves a hunt for a terminal later.

The queue is the thing to plan around. Weekday mornings are quiet. Evenings, weekends and the hour before sunset are when the line backs up the stairs at the lower station, and on a warm Saturday that can mean a long wait.

The Rustaveli cable car to Mtatsminda

The newest way up opened in October 2024, on the line of an older cable car that ran from 1959 until 1990, when it closed after an accident. The lower station is a restored historic building right on Rustaveli Avenue, behind the Academy of Sciences, so it slots neatly into a walk along the city's main boulevard.

21 round gondolas seat 8 people each and cover the 845 m to the park in about 4 minutes. The line can move 1,200 people an hour in each direction, which is why its queue clears far faster than the funicular's on a busy evening. The park administration runs it.

My rule: the funicular for a first visit, because the old cars and the halfway stop are part of the trip, and the cable car whenever the funicular line looks long. It is one of several lifts in town, and Tbilisi's cable cars are the fastest way to gain height anywhere in the center, from the Rike Park line to Narikala to the short hop up to Turtle Lake.

Hiking up Mtatsminda to the TV tower

You can walk up, and plenty of locals do, mostly in the cool of the morning. Three routes cover nearly everyone:

From Sololaki, the old merchant quarter right under the mountain, numbered concrete stairways climb from the top streets toward the Pantheon and the park. The Pantheon path is the one I'd give anyone in ordinary shoes. The Mikhail of Tver route is the real workout, and it brings you out beside the TV tower fence with the city falling away below.

The long one starts at Turtle Lake, the small lake on the hill above Vake, and follows the ridge across to the park. It is the only proper hike you can reach from a city-center hotel without a car, while the day hikes near Tbilisi all start with a drive or a marshrutka. Bring water and proper shoes for that one.

The halfway stop: Pantheon and Mama Daviti Church

The funicular's one stop is halfway up, at Mama Daviti, the Church of St David, and the Mtatsminda Pantheon around it. This terrace holds the graves of Georgia's poets, writers and national figures, and it is the best known of Tbilisi's historic cemeteries. It is also a far quieter viewpoint than the summit, looking straight down onto Sololaki and the old town roofs.

I'd see it on foot rather than hop off the funicular: ride to the top, then take the paved path down, and the Pantheon comes to you halfway.

Inside the park: the Ferris wheel and rides

Entry to the park is free; you pay per ride, roughly 1 to 10 GEL each, tapped from the same park card at every gate. The Ferris wheel is the one I'd ride even without children. It stands over 60 m tall on the edge of the summit, so the cabin at the top hangs out over the slope with the city below, and it is the highest seat on the mountain.

Around it sit the roller coaster, the bumper cars, a carousel and a long row of small rides scaled for toddlers, plus a wax museum and snack stands. It is the easiest afternoon there is in Tbilisi with kids: flat paths, cheap rides and a funicular ride at each end.

The park keeps roughly 11:00 to 23:00 hours in the warm months, and the rides close earlier in winter. The paths and terraces stay open, so a winter visit still gets you the view.

The view from Mtatsminda: sunset and after dark

The terraces along the edge of the park, below the upper funicular station, look east across the entire valley: the old town and the fortress walls, the Kura river, Sameba's dome on its hill and the newer districts stretching out toward the hills beyond. Get up about an hour before sunset, watch the light go gold and then blue, and stay for the moment the bridges and avenues light up.

Of all the viewpoints in Tbilisi, this is the highest you can reach without leaving the city. The ridge at Narikala Fortress gives you the old town close up, with the domes of the bath district right under your feet, while Mtatsminda pulls back and shows how the whole valley fits together. I'd do Narikala by day and Mtatsminda at night.

Eating and drinking at the top

The big colonnaded building at the top of the funicular is where the eating happens: restaurants with glassed-in terraces looking over the city, and a cafe. That cafe is famous for its ponchiki, the cream-filled doughnuts that turn up on every list of Georgian desserts, and a paper bag of them on the terrace is the most Tbilisi snack I know.

Beyond the station building, the park has kiosks and snack bars around the rides for ice cream, corn and drinks. Prices on the summit run higher than down in town. On a summer weekend I'd book a terrace table for sunset rather than hope for one.

The Tbilisi TV tower: can you go up?

No. The TV tower is a working broadcast tower and is closed to visitors, so there is no observation deck to buy a ticket for. The Mikhail of Tver trail takes you right up to its fence, and the park terraces and the Ferris wheel are as high as you get.

It is still the most useful landmark in town. The tower is lit after dark, it shows where Mtatsminda is from almost any street in the city, and it is the easiest way to find the funicular when you are lost in Sololaki: walk uphill toward it.

When to go and how long to spend

The park is open all year. Spring and autumn are the easy months, warm enough to sit out after dark and cool enough to hike up, and the best time to visit Tbilisi is the best time for the mountain too. On summer evenings the summit is a breezy relief from the city heat. In winter the rides shut earlier and snow can dust the slopes, but the view on a clear cold evening is the sharpest of the year.

For the time of day, my answer is a weekday, arriving at the lower station about an hour before sunset. Weekday mornings have the shortest queue but the flattest light; weekend evenings have the best atmosphere and the longest wait.

How long to give it:

• The view and one ride: about 2 hours, door to door from Rustaveli.
• Sunset plus dinner: 3 hours, with the walk down replaced by the funicular.
• A family afternoon: 3 to 5 hours, rides included.
• The Turtle Lake hike plus the park: most of a day.

In a 3-day Tbilisi itinerary, Mtatsminda fits the first or second evening, after a day in the old town and a walk up Rustaveli Avenue to the cable car or the funicular.

What a Mtatsminda evening costs

Getting up and down is the main cost, because the park itself is free. These are the totals for the common plans, before rides and food:

Add 1 to 10 GEL per person for each ride, and dinner on the terrace at summit prices. The bus fare is 1 GEL on a Metromoney card and closer to 1.50 GEL if you tap a foreign bank card.