Jason came looking for the Golden Fleece in Colchis, which is today's western Georgia, and archaeologists are still pulling gold out of the tombs at Vani. This trip covers that half of the country with two nights in Kutaisi and two in Batumi. The second day is short and stays in the city: the market, Bagrati, Gelati and Prometheus Cave, 63 km. The third is the Okatse and Martvili canyons and the descent to the coast, and the fourth all of Batumi: the Roman fortress of Gonio, where tradition places the tomb of the apostle Matthias, the Borjgalo museum and the boulevard.
The return to Tbilisi is the long day, 377 km, with the Shekvetili dendrological park and the monastery of Ubisa, in the woods beside the motorway, with 14th-century frescoes that hardly anyone stops to see. The outward leg from the capital passes Mtskheta, Uplistsikhe and the Stalin museum in Gori. Hotels in Kutaisi and Batumi, category of your choice.
Itinerary
Day 1 - Tbilisi - Mtskheta - Uplistsikhe - Gori - Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 267KM 4 Hours and 44 Minutes 267 km and 4 hours 44 minutes in the car in all. Today's stops: Jvari, Svetitskhoveli, Uplistsikhe and Stalin Museum. Road 25KM 0 Hours and 36 MinutesJvari, the Monastery of the Cross
From the Tbilisi road you can see a small church on top of a bare hill above Mtskheta. It is Jvari, "the cross", and it is there because, according to tradition, in the 4th century St Nino planted a wooden cross on that spot when she converted Georgia. The present church was built between 586 and 605 and became the model for many others in the country: a cross plan with four apses and a dome in the middle, with hardly any decoration. It is a UNESCO site together with Mtskheta.
What you remember is the view: below, the Aragvi and the Mtkvari meet, each a different colour, with Svetitskhoveli cathedral in between. Lermontov set his poem "Mtsyri" here. It is almost always windy, so a jacket is not a bad idea even in July. Twenty minutes, half an hour if the day is clear.
Road 13KM 0 Hours and 18 Minutes
Svetitskhoveli
For a Georgian this is the cathedral, full stop. It stands in Mtskheta, the old capital, 20 km from Tbilisi, and the present building went up between 1010 and 1029 on the site of the 4th-century church of King Mirian, the one who converted the country to Christianity. Beneath it, according to tradition, lies the robe of Christ: a Jew from Mtskheta brought it from Jerusalem, his sister Sidonia died clutching it and they were buried together; a cedar grew from the spot, and from its trunk came the pillar that gives the church its name, "the life-giving pillar". Kings were crowned and buried here; the slabs of Vakhtang Gorgasali and Erekle II are in the floor.
A UNESCO site since 1994, and at weekends the weddings follow one another, so sometimes you wait at the door. Headscarves for women and covered shoulders for everyone. Half an hour inside, another in the lanes around it, which live off tourism but keep the feel of a village.
Road 61KM 1 Hours and 5 Minutes
Uplistsikhe
A whole town cut into the rock, 10 km from Gori above the Mtkvari river. People lived at Uplistsikhe from the first millennium BC until the Middle Ages: first a pagan centre, then a Christian one, and always a stop for the caravans. What remains are carved streets, a hall with a ceiling imitating wooden beams (they call it "Queen Tamar's hall"), wine presses, a tunnel down to the river and a 10th-century brick church planted on top of it all. The Mongols emptied it in the 13th century and it never recovered.
One piece of advice: in summer there is no shade and the rock burns, so go early or late in the day, and wear shoes with grip, because the polished stone is slippery. An hour is enough to climb up to the church and look down at the river.
Road 14KM 0 Hours and 20 Minutes
Stalin Museum
Gori is the town where Iosif Dzhugashvili was born in 1878, and the museum dedicated to him in 1957 is still open much as it was then. It is three things: the little wooden house where he was born, protected under a pavilion of columns; the main building, a Soviet-style palace with his personal belongings, photographs, gifts from heads of state and one of the bronze copies of his death mask; and the armoured railway carriage in which he travelled to Yalta and Potsdam, because he did not like flying.
Let us be plain: the museum tells the kind version. There is a small room on the repression, added late, and little else. We tell the rest on the road, and the one-hour visit usually ends in a long conversation in the car.
Road 154KM 2 Hours and 25 Minutes
Day 2 - Kutaisi - Bagrati - Gelati - Promete - Kutaisi
Total road of the day - 63KM 1 Hours and 41 Minutes In the morning, Kutaisi market; in the afternoon, Bagrati Cathedral, Gelati Academy and Prometheus Cave. 63 km in all. Road 0KM 0 Hours and 0 MinutesKutaisi market
The central market of Kutaisi, two steps from the White Bridge, is the best lesson in Georgian cooking you can get in 45 minutes. What to try: sulguni and fresh Imeretian cheese, the one that goes inside khachapuri; ajika, the local chilli paste; khmeli-suneli, the spice mix that goes into half the country's recipes; tklapi, sheets of dried fruit that look like leather; churchkhela hanging everywhere and, in autumn, persimmons and pomegranates by the heap.
The women on the stalls give you things to taste and do not mind if you do not buy. Prices are real ones, not tourist ones, so if you want to take spices or honey home, this is the place. Outside, on the square, the Colchis fountain, with gilded copies of the 3,000-year-old gold pieces found around here.
Road 2KM 0 Hours and 9 Minutes
Bagrati 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 10KM 0 Hours and 20 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 29KM 0 Hours and 41 Minutes
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.
Road 22KM 0 Hours and 31 Minutes
Day 3 - Kutaisi - Okatse - Martvili - Batumi
Total road of the day - 241KM 4 Hours and 40 Minutes First Okatse Canyon, then Martvili Canyon. 241 km, 4 hours 40 minutes; lunch on the way. 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.
Day 4 - Batumi and surroundings
Total road of the day - 27KM 0 Hours and 50 Minutes We leave after breakfast. On the programme, Borjgalo Ethnographic Museum and Gonio Fortress; 27 km in short stretches. 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.
Day 5 - Batumi - Dendrological Park - Ubisa - Tbilisi
Total road of the day - 377KM 6 Hours and 7 Minutes Shekvetili Dendrological Park and Ubisa Monastery. It is 377 km; we leave early so as not to rush. Road 49KM 0 Hours and 51 MinutesShekvetili 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.
Ubisa Monastery
From the motorway between Tbilisi and Kutaisi you would never guess that one of the best sets of frescoes in Georgia is right there. Ubisa is a small 9th-century monastery founded by Grigol Khandzteli, the great organiser of Georgian monastic life, and inside it is painted from top to bottom by a 14th-century master called Damiane, in a style that came from Constantinople: elongated faces, muted colours, a lot of expression. You have to let your eyes get used to the gloom.
Half an hour. It is a stop that breaks the three hours of motorway nicely, and next door there are roadside places to eat, the khachapuri-and-lemonade kind. 
