The towers are those of Svaneti, medieval, stone, one per family, and the coast is Batumi. Between the two, this six-day trip fits the best of Imereti into the first full day: Bagrati, Motsameta, Gelati and Nikortsminda cathedral, in Racha. Then it climbs past the Enguri reservoir to Mestia and, if the track allows, on to Ushguli, at 2,100 metres under Shkhara; we sleep in Mestia. The next day, the Dadiani palace in Zugdidi, the Shekvetili dendrological park and arrival at the sea.
In Batumi, a full day for Gonio fortress, the Borjgalo museum and the boulevard, and in the morning the two-hour transfer to Kutaisi airport. Days three and four are mountain days and long, five hours in the car each. Between November and April the Ushguli track is usually closed and that day stays in Mestia. Hotels in Kutaisi, Mestia and Batumi.
Itinerary
Day 1 - Transfer from Kutaisi airport to Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 25KM 0 Hours and 30 Minutes Arrival. Someone from the team is waiting at the airport with a sign; the rest of the day is yours. Road 25KM 0 Hours and 30 MinutesDay 2 - Kutaisi - Bagrati - Motsameta - Gelati - Nikortsminda-Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 192KM 4 Hours and 21 Minutes Bagrati Cathedral, Motsameta, Gelati Academy and Nikortsminda. It is 192 km; we leave early so as not to rush. Road 2KM 0 Hours and 9 MinutesBagrati Cathedral
You can see it from half of Kutaisi, so you arrive already knowing what it is. What you cannot see from below is the controversy: Bagrat III consecrated it in 1003, the Ottomans blew it up in 1692 and it stood in ruins for three centuries until, in 2012, it was rebuilt in full, with concrete and a glass lift stuck to one side. UNESCO took it off the list in 2017 for that. Some people see it as a botch job. We still like it, mostly for the site: the terrace has the best view of the city and the Rioni valley. Ten minutes uphill from the centre and a full circuit of the building to find the original carvings left on the walls.
Road 8KM 0 Hours and 17 Minutes
Motsameta
First the legend, because it is what you are told the moment you arrive: in the 8th century the Arabs killed the brothers David and Konstantin Mkheidze, nobles of Argveti, for refusing to give up their faith, and that is where the monastery gets its name, "the place of the martyrs". Their relics lie in a casket inside the church and passing under it three times, they say, grants a wish. Then the site: a rocky spur above the Tskaltsitela canyon ("red water" in Georgian), ten minutes from Kutaisi. The present building is 11th century, much altered.
Half an hour is enough. The best part is not the church, it is the balcony over the gorge.
Road 4KM 0 Hours and 8 Minutes
Gelati Academy
David the Builder asked to be buried in the floor of the south gate, so that everyone who came in would step on his grave. He has been there since 1125, and the monastery of Gelati, which he founded in 1106, was for centuries the great school of the kingdom: in its academy Greek philosophy was translated and copied at a time when Georgia looked to Byzantium. A UNESCO site since 1994 and, unlike Bagrati, still on the list. As soon as you enter the main church, the 12th-century mosaic of the Virgin in the apse; then frescoes on every wall, from different centuries. We give it almost an hour between the church, the tomb, the academy (a long hall with stone benches) and the church of St George. The domes were under repair for years because of leaks [VERIFICAR: estado de la restauración del tejado en 2026].
Road 58KM 1 Hours and 15 Minutes
Nikortsminda
This is the debatable detour of the day, and we are the ones saying so, since we are the ones who include it: an hour and a quarter of mountain road from Gelati and 120 km back to Kutaisi that feel long once it gets dark. Why is it worth it? The façade. Nikortsminda cathedral is small, built in 1010-1014 under Bagrat III, but its outer walls are the most elaborately carved in Georgia: the Last Judgement, St George, animals, vines, all cut in stone. Inside, 17th-century frescoes. If you would rather shorten the day, it can be left out and the time given to Gelati; just say so when you book. In good weather we also stop at the viewpoint over the Shaori reservoir, which is on the way.
Road 120KM 2 Hours and 32 Minutes
Day 3 - Kutaisi - Ushguli - Mestia
Total road of the day - 208KM 5 Hours and 20 Minutes 208 km and 5 hours 20 minutes in the car in all. Today's stops: Ushguli. Road 161KM 3 Hours and 35 MinutesUshguli
The last 45 km, from Mestia, are dirt road. It gets better every year and it is still dirt road [DATO: estado de la carretera Mestia-Ushguli esta temporada]; in winter it closes. At the end are the four villages of Ushguli, at 2,200 metres, with their more than twenty towers from the 9th to 12th centuries and Shkhara (5,193 m) closing the valley. A UNESCO site since 1996 and, depending on who you ask, the highest inhabited village in Europe; a couple of villages in the North Caucasus dispute the title.
We arrive around midday and have lunch in a village house. Then, on foot, the Lamaria church at the top, with Shkhara behind it, and one of the tower houses turned into a museum. With daylight short in the mountains, we drive down to sleep in Mestia. [VERIFICAR: el original decía que se duerme en Ushguli y se camina al glaciar de Shkhara; el día termina en Mestia]
Day 4 - Mestia - Zugdidi - Dendrological Park - Batumi
Total road of the day - 268KM 5 Hours and 8 Minutes A day with 5 hours 8 minutes at the wheel, which is not nothing, and in return Dadiani Palace, Shekvetili Dendrological Park and Batumi. Road 135KM 2 Hours and 53 MinutesDadiani Palace
Napoleon's death mask is in Zugdidi, and that is no joke. One of the bronze copies was brought by Achille Murat, the emperor's great-nephew, when he married Princess Salome Dadiani in 1868, and it stayed in the palace of the family that ruled Samegrelo until the Russians came. The Dadiani palace, built from 1873 to 1878 in a style between European and Georgian, is now a museum: the mask, icons, manuscripts, one of the oldest libraries in the country and the gardens, which are a small botanical garden.
An hour. It is the natural stop on the way to Svaneti, before the climb to Mestia, and the best excuse to stretch your legs in Zugdidi.
Road 83KM 1 Hours and 25 Minutes
Shekvetili Dendrological Park
The trees in this park arrived by sea. They are specimens one and two hundred years old, tulip trees, magnolias, eucalyptus, that Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, bought all over the country and shipped by barge to the coast of Guria; there is a documentary, "Taming the Garden", that tells the story and does not flatter the owner. Shekvetili park opened in 2020: 60 hectares by the beach, more than 200 species, lakes, a bamboo grove and, in the middle, the biggest tree, visible from the road.
It is free, immaculate, and in summer there are queues at weekends. A good hour's walk; nearby are the magnetic black-sand beaches of Ureki, which local people use as a spa.
Road 50KM 0 Hours and 50 Minutes
Batumi
Batumi is another Georgia: subtropical, humid, with palm trees, casinos and glass towers next to late 19th-century houses, 20 km from Turkey. It is the capital of Adjara and the country's port since always. What you do here is walk: the boulevard along the sea, laid out in 1881 and now 7 km long, the Piazza in the old town with its Italian-looking terraces, and, at the end of the promenade, Ali and Nino, the two eight-metre steel figures that move and pass through each other every ten minutes, by Tamara Kvesitadze. Two things the brochures leave out: it rains a lot, even in summer, and in July and August the city is packed. In return, you eat well: Adjarian khachapuri, the bread boat with cheese, butter and a raw egg on top, was born here and is made better here than anywhere. Road 0KM 0 Hours and 0 MinutesDay 5 - Batumi and surroundings
Total road of the day - 27KM 0 Hours and 50 Minutes Today the car is only the means: 27 km to reach Borjgalo Ethnographic Museum and Gonio Fortress. Road 6KM 0 Hours and 15 MinutesBorjgalo Ethnographic Museum
It is not a museum in the usual sense. Borjgalo was made by hand by Kemal Turmanidze, a sculptor from the area, and opened in 2016 on the outskirts of Batumi, near the airport: models and near life-size wooden figures showing how people lived in the villages of Adjara a hundred years ago, the house, the mill, the forge, the wedding, the beekeeper. Many pieces move or make sounds, and Kemal himself or his family are usually around.
It works very well with children and with anyone who is tired of churches by now. An hour. It sits on a residential street with nothing around it, so do not expect a café.
Gonio Fortress
Fifteen kilometres south of Batumi, almost on the Turkish border, the Romans built the camp of Apsaros in the 1st century to watch the coast, and the walls are still standing: a rectangle with a perimeter of almost 900 metres and 18 of its original 22 towers. Later the Byzantines and the Ottomans used it, and the Ottomans called it Gonio. Inside there is a small museum with the finds from the digs, the remains of Roman baths and a grave that tradition attributes to the apostle Matthias, the one who replaced Judas. No proof, but people come to pray.
It is a 45-minute stop, flat and without shade; in summer bring a cap. If there is time, Gonio beach is next door and is one of the quietest in the area.
