Why go
Lebarde sits at 1,450 meters in the Egrisi Range, a Soviet-era climatic resort where carbonated mineral springs have drawn seekers of cure and calm since the 1930s. The water here—cool, metallic, slightly effervescent—was once prescribed for nervous disorders and digestive ailments, dispensed in a crumbling sanatorium that still stands. What endures is the setting: alpine meadows explode with wildflowers in June, beech forests climb to the ridgeline, and the view drops through cloud layers to the Colchis lowlands far below. It is worth the journey because Georgia's better-known mountain retreats have crowds and prices; Lebarde has silence, the particular green of high humidity, and the strange pleasure of bathing in history's medicinal architecture.