Svaneti is the region of the towers, and Ushguli, at 2,100 metres, one of the highest inhabited villages in Europe, with Shkhara behind it. This trip fits it into five days: the second climbs from Kutaisi past the Enguri reservoir to Mestia and continues along the track to Ushguli, a long mountain day that depends on the state of the road, and we sleep in Mestia. The third comes down to the plain: the Dadiani palace in Zugdidi, with one of Napoleon's death masks among its pieces, the Shekvetili dendrological park and arrival in Batumi.
The fourth is the city: Gonio fortress, the Borjgalo museum and the seafront. The fifth, two hours to Kutaisi airport. From November to April the Ushguli track is usually closed by snow and that day stays in Mestia and its surroundings. 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 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 - Ushguli - Mestia
Total road of the day - 208KM 5 Hours and 20 Minutes Today the car is only the means: 208 km to reach 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 3 - Mestia - Zugdidi - Dendrological Park - Batumi
Total road of the day - 268KM 5 Hours and 8 Minutes 268 km and 5 hours 8 minutes in the car in all. Today's stops: 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 4 - Batumi and surroundings
Total road of the day - 27KM 0 Hours and 50 Minutes In the morning, Borjgalo Ethnographic Museum; in the afternoon, Gonio Fortress. 27 km in all. 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.
