Overview
This 6 day Mestia and Svaneti tour is the furthest we go inside Georgia. It suits the traveller who has already seen the country once and come back for what everyone else misses, and anyone who does not mind a long mountain road in exchange for a landscape unlike anything else in the Caucasus. Svaneti is an isolated province in the far north-west, its villages fortified with stone towers built between the ninth and twelfth centuries and still standing among houses lived in today. The rhythm: a night in Kutaisi on arrival, then three nights in Mestia at 1,500 metres used as a base for daily excursions, then a final night back in Kutaisi so that departure day is not a long overland drive. The longest day is Ushguli: only forty-five kilometres, but about two and a half hours each way on a rough track in a 4x4. If you want western Georgia without that road, see Kutaisi and Caves 4 Day Tour; for Svaneti in winter on skis, Georgia Advanced Ski Tour 7 Days - Gudauri and Mestia; for the rest of our adventure programmes, Georgia Youth and Adventure Packages. An Arabic-speaking driver is a condition here rather than a choice: almost nothing on the road is signed in a script you can read, and phone coverage drops for long stretches in the Enguri gorge between Zugdidi and Mestia.
الباقة تشمل
- ✔ Private car with an Arabic-speaking driver for all six days between Kutaisi and Svaneti
- ✔ Five nights: one in Kutaisi, three in Mestia and a final night back in Kutaisi
- ✔ Pick-up from Kutaisi airport and drop-off on departure (about 22 km from the city)
- ✔ The road to Mestia via Zugdidi, the Enguri dam and its turquoise reservoir, with scheduled photo stops
- ✔ Arranging a local 4x4 for the full Ushguli day, there and back
- ✔ The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography, the Margiani tower house and the Mikheil Khergiani museum
- ✔ The Hatsvali cable car to the Zuruldi ridge and the walk to the Chalaadi glacier through birch forest
- ✔ Martvili canyon by boat, Prometheus Cave and Gelati Monastery on the arrival and return days
- ✔ Booking on WhatsApp https://wa.me/995550000663 with a company officially registered in Georgia
Trip Itinerary
اليوم 1: Day One | Arrival in Kutaisi and Gelati
You are met at Kutaisi airport and driven to the hotel, about twenty-two kilometres. After a rest we climb to Gelati Monastery, founded by King David the Builder in 1106, whose mosaic of the Virgin in the apse of the main church is among the most important Byzantine work surviving in the Caucasus. We come down to Bagrati Cathedral on its hill above the city and the Rioni river. In the evening we walk the central square by the gilded Colchis fountain and eat at a local restaurant. An early night, because tomorrow's road is long.
اليوم 2: Day Two | Up into Svaneti past the Enguri dam
We leave Kutaisi west to Zugdidi, then north to the Enguri dam, one of the tallest arch dams in the world at close to 271 metres, its reservoir an improbable turquoise in daylight. From there the Enguri gorge begins: some hundred and thirty kilometres of bends above the river, about two hundred and twenty kilometres in all from Kutaisi in five to six hours with stops. We reach Mestia in the afternoon at 1,500 metres and walk Seti square among the stone towers for the first time. Three nights in Mestia.
اليوم 3: Day Three | Chalaadi glacier, the Mestia museums and the Zuruldi ridge
In the morning we drive eight kilometres east up the Mestiachala valley to the start of the Chalaadi glacier trail, then walk about an hour and a half through birch forest and over a suspension bridge to the blue, gravel-streaked tongue of the ice. After lunch we visit the Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography with its gilded icons and manuscripts, then the Margiani tower house to see how a family actually lived inside a tower through winter. In the late afternoon the Hatsvali cable car lifts us to the Zuruldi ridge, where the twin summit of Ushba appears above everything.
اليوم 4: Day Four | Ushguli, the highest inhabited villages in Europe
A full day by local 4x4 to Ushguli at about 2,100 metres, a cluster of villages counted among the highest settlements inhabited year-round in Europe. The distance is only forty-five kilometres but takes around two and a half hours each way on a stone track following the Enguri river. Up there we walk among the towers and climb to Lamaria church at the edge of the village, from whose yard Mount Shkhara, 5,193 metres and the highest point in Georgia, closes the end of the valley. Lunch in a local house, then back before sunset.
اليوم 5: Day Five | Down from the mountains and Martvili canyon
We leave Mestia in the morning after a short stop at Latali church and the towers of Bekari village at the end of the valley. We descend the same gorge in the opposite direction, and the view is completely different with the river on your right. Past the Enguri dam we turn east to Martvili canyon, where a rubber boat carries you through a narrow green corridor between two high limestone walls, the best possible break after hours in the car. We reach Kutaisi in the evening for a final night, so departure day does not start with a mountain road.
اليوم 6: Day Six | Prometheus Cave, then departure
Check out, then Prometheus Cave at Kumistavi north of Kutaisi, a chain of underground halls with a walking route of about a kilometre and a half between lit stalactites and stalagmites, ending with a short boat ride on an underground river for those who want it. The temperature inside stays cool and constant all year, so bring a light jacket. Back into Kutaisi for a last lunch and whatever honey and spices you want to take home, then the transfer to Kutaisi airport according to your flight.