The Imereti version for those who prefer caves and canyons to kilometres. No day goes over 200 km and two stay under 130. Based in Kutaisi, the first full day is given to the monasteries, Bagrati, Motsameta and Gelati, and to Nikortsminda cathedral, in Racha, which is the longest stretch. The second is underground: the Sataplia reserve, 10 km from the city, with dinosaur footprints and a small cave, and Prometheus Cave, with 1.4 km of lit galleries.
The third, the canyons: the Okatse walkway, hanging 140 metres up, and the boat along the Abasha river in Martvili. Half-hour airport transfers on arrival and departure. Between May and September, bring a swimsuit for Martvili; in winter Prometheus Cave is at the same 14 degrees as in August.
Itinerary
Day 1 - Transfer from Kutaisi airport to Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 25KM 0 Hours and 30 Minutes We pick you up at the airport whenever your flight lands and go to the hotel. No more programme today. 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 In the morning, Bagrati Cathedral; in the afternoon, Motsameta, Gelati Academy and Nikortsminda. 192 km in all. 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 - Sataplia - Prometheus Cave - Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 58KM 1 Hours and 26 Minutes First Sataplia, then Prometheus Cave. 58 km, 1 hour 26 minutes; lunch on the way. Road 12KM 0 Hours and 20 MinutesSataplia
Dinosaur footprints 10 km from Kutaisi: some two hundred of them, 120 million years old, on a limestone slab under a pavilion, one of the few places in the world where you see the prints of carnivores and herbivores together. That is why the Sataplia reserve exists, whose name means "place of honey" after the wild beehives that used to be in its rocks. The rest is a Colchic forest, the humid forest that covered this whole coast before humans, a 300-metre cave with lit stalactites and, at the end, a glass-floored viewpoint over Kutaisi.
An hour and a half. It works very well with children, mostly because of the life-size plastic dinosaurs among the trees, which adults could do without and they cannot.
Prometheus Cave
Inside it is 14 degrees all year round, which is welcome in summer and in winter too: bring a jacket. Prometheus Cave is at Kumistavi, 20 km from Kutaisi, next to the spa town of Tskaltubo. It was discovered in 1984 and opened to the public in 2011 with a route of just over a kilometre through six of its 22 halls, on concrete walkways with coloured lights that some people like and others do not. The name is for the titan who, according to the Greeks, ended up chained in these mountains; Georgians call him Amirani.
The visit takes a good hour. At the end, if the underground river has enough water, you can leave by boat along a stretch of about 300 metres, paid separately; when the level drops, you walk out. The floor is damp and slippery, so closed shoes are better.
Day 4 - Kutaisi - Okatse - Martvili - Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 130KM 2 Hours and 40 Minutes We leave after breakfast. On the programme, Okatse Canyon and Martvili Canyon; 130 km in short stretches. Road 50KM 1 Hours and 5 MinutesOkatse Canyon
If you have a fear of heights, read this first. Okatse canyon, back in Imereti, is not visited from the water but from above: a 700-metre metal walkway bolted to the wall of the gorge, some 50 metres above the river, with a grid floor that lets you see the bottom, and a final platform that juts a few metres out over the drop. From the car park in the village of Gordi it is 2.5 km through the forest of the old Dadiani park to the start of the walkway; you do it on foot or in the locals' 4x4s, which charge extra [DATO: precio del 4x4 en 2026].
Two hours in all. We usually walk there and come back by 4x4 if the group prefers.
Martvili Canyon
The water of the Abasha river is a turquoise that looks edited. It is not: this is Martvili canyon, in Samegrelo, three and a quarter hours from Mestia and the most visited canyon in western Georgia. It has two sections. In the upper one you take a boat ride of about fifteen minutes between walls 20 to 40 metres high; in the lower one there are walkways and a waterfall. It was the bathing place of the Dadiani princes, whose palace was in Zugdidi. Since it was developed in 2016 there is a ticket office, a car park and quite a crowd; on July and August weekends there is a queue for the boats [DATO: precio de entrada y de la barca en 2026]. We do the boat as soon as we arrive and then the walkways, half an hour without hurrying. If the river is swollen after rain, the boats do not go out and the water loses its colour; on those days we swap the order with Okatse.
