Grand Tour with Svaneti

Following your airport pickup, the walk starts at Metekhi Church, rides the cable car to the walls of Narikala, then drops back down into Abanotubani, the bath district, where sulphur springs still supply the brick-domed bathhouses. The alleys of Kala lead on to Sioni Cathedral and to Anchiskhati, the oldest church in the city, and end on the Bridge of Peace as its lights switch on. Over dinner your guide introduces the food and toasts you will come to know during the next ten days.

Head east to Bodbe Monastery, the site of St Nino's grave, and continue to Sighnaghi, a compact hill town enclosed by 18th-century walls high above the Alazani Valley. After a walk along the ramparts, lunch is at a winemaking family's table, with wine poured straight from the qvevri, the clay vessels Georgians have used to ferment wine for around 8,000 years. In the afternoon you visit the country house of Alexander Chavchavadze at Tsinandali, with its museum rooms, historic cellar and park. You are back in Tbilisi for the evening.

After Jvari Monastery and Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta, follow the Georgian Military Highway north past the Zhinvali Reservoir and the walls of Ananuri. Above Gudauri there is a stop at the Friendship Monument, and then the road tops out at the Jvari Pass, 2,379 m above sea level. From Stepantsminda a 4x4 tackles the slope to Gergeti Trinity Church, a 14th-century building 2,170 m up, set against the bulk of Mount Kazbek. Prefer to go on foot? The old path up from the village takes around an hour and a half. You eat and sleep in Stepantsminda tonight.

Start the morning in the Dariali Gorge, which runs north to the Russian border, with the half-hour path up to the Gveleti Waterfall, which tumbles through a slender cleft in the granite. After a look at Dariali Monastery beside the Tergi, you head back south across the pass, pausing in Pasanauri for khinkali, the dumplings the village is known for. Late in the afternoon, soak in the hot sulphur water of an Abanotubani bathhouse, in a room of your own, a good way to rest your legs before the long journey west.

Uplistsikhe, the cave town above the Mtkvari, is the first stop as you head west; walk its halls, its wine presses and the stepped street that climbs through the rock. Then the Rikoti Pass carries you into western Georgia, and Kutaisi appears by mid-afternoon. David IV the Builder founded Gelati Monastery in 1106, and its academy turned it into a seat of learning; the main church is still home to a 12th-century mosaic of the Virgin. Finish at Bagrati Cathedral, raised in 1003 on a hilltop with views over the city and the Rioni River.

An early departure from Kutaisi brings you to Martvili Canyon for a walk along the rim over the turquoise Abasha and, in season, a brief ride in an inflatable boat. Then on through Zugdidi and north up the Enguri gorge, with a stop at the Enguri Dam, a concrete arch roughly 270 m tall and among the highest of its kind in the world. For the next three hours the road winds up through forest into Upper Svaneti. You arrive in Mestia, about 1,500 m up, where stone towers raised between the 9th and 13th centuries stand above the village houses.

A 4x4 bounces up the rough track from Mestia to the Koruldi Lakes, around 2,740 m. These small tarns are best on a still morning, when the two summits of Ushba (4,710 m) appear upside down in the water. Walk around the shore and, if you like, part of the way back down on foot. In the afternoon the Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography shows medieval icons, manuscripts and crosses of gold and silver that Svan churches kept safe for centuries. Then go inside a tower house to see how a family lived alongside its animals and withdrew into the tower whenever a blood feud flared up.

Ushguli lies 46 km east of Mestia. Its four villages, at roughly 2,100 m, with their towers and stone houses, are included in UNESCO's Upper Svaneti listing. Climb the hill above Zhibiani to the medieval church of Lamaria, where Shkhara (5,193 m), Georgia's highest mountain, closes off the valley behind. Wander among the towers of Chazhashi and, if your legs allow, spend two to four hours following the Enguri upstream in the direction of the Shkhara glacier. In the late afternoon you head back to Mestia.

Retrace the Enguri gorge down to Zugdidi and the Dadiani Palace, home in the 19th century to the princes of Samegrelo. Among the portraits and icons in its museum is a bronze death mask of Napoleon, one of several that were cast, which came to the Dadiani family when they married into the Murats. Stroll through the botanical garden that surrounds the palace, then follow the coast south to Batumi. After dark, the seafront boulevard takes you to the Alphabet Tower and on to Ali and Nino, two steel figures that slowly move toward each other, pass through and draw apart again.

Your last morning is in Batumi Botanical Garden. Laid out on the Green Cape in 1912, it gathers plants from Japan, the Himalayas and South America along its forest paths, with lookouts over the sea. Afterwards you head south to Gonio, a Roman fort whose walls and towers are still intact, close to where the Chorokhi River meets the sea. A farewell lunch of Adjarian khachapuri follows, and then a transfer to the airport in Batumi or to the station for your train to Tbilisi.