Why go
Bodbe Monastery cradles the remains of St. Nino, the 4th-century Cappadocian woman who converted King Mirian and brought Christianity to Georgia in 337 AD. What began as a simple burial site grew into a major pilgrimage destination by the 9th century, with a domed church added in the 1880s. The complex now functions as a working convent, its nuns tending gardens where Nino once planted her cross of grapevines. The true revelation comes from the terraced hillside behind the church: an unbroken view across the Alazani Valley, where vineyards climb toward the snow-capped Caucasus. This is Georgia's spiritual and agricultural origin story in one frame.