The eastern end of this large, impressive castle (the first part inside the main entrance) includes a hotel, restaurant, tourism information centre and a couple of shops. Tickets are only needed to go up into the monumental part at the west end, with its mosque, citadel and museum. A tour (available in English, French or German) is a good idea to bring things alive.
Ponds and colonnaded pavilions are set before the stone-and-brick Ahmadiyya Mosque and two-storey medrese (Islamic school), built in the 1750s. The mosque (no longer used for religious purposes) now sports a dazzling new gold dome. Up to the left rise the citadel and the Samtskhe-Javakheti History Museum , which spans the aeons from the 4th-millennium-BC Kura-Araxes Culture to Ottoman weaponry and 19th-century regional costumes.
