Kutaisi, Kakheti and Kazbegi

1. Day 1

   Arrival in Tbilisi

   1235

   Arrive at Tbilisi

   The programme is costed around a 12:35 arrival at Tbilisi International Airport. Met on landing and transferred to your hotel.

   Evening

   Overnight in Tbilisi.

2. Day 2

   West to Kutaisi

   Overnight: Kutaisi

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel.

   Prometheus Cave

   At Kumistavi in the Tskaltubo municipality, 42km from Martvili. The cave runs 1.8km and drops to 40 metres below sea level; you can walk it, or take the boat along the underground Kumi river. Entry included.

   Martvili Canyon

   A nature reserve in the west of the country — a narrow limestone gorge with walkways hung above the water. Entry included.

   Evening

   Overnight in Kutaisi.

3. Day 3

   Sataplia, Gori and Mtskheta

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel. This is the longest driving day of the week, so an early start matters.

   Sataplia Nature Reserve

   Dinosaur footprints preserved in the rock, a karst cave, a stretch of Colchic forest and a glass viewing platform out over it. Two marked trails, a museum and an exhibition hall. Entry included.

   Stalin Museum, Gori

   The only museum dedicated to him that was built in his lifetime, in the town he was born in. It holds material from his political career and from his private life. Entry included.

   Jvari Monastery

   On a hill nine kilometres above Mtskheta. In the prehistoric period this was the site of a pagan deity; after Christianity became the state religion a cross — jvari — was raised here, and a church followed in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is the first cross-domed church in Georgia and is UNESCO-listed.

   Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

   In Mtskheta, 24km from Tbilisi. The first wooden church in Georgia went up here in 337; the cathedral now standing was built in the eleventh century and remained the largest in the country until the twenty-first. Damaged and restored repeatedly over the centuries, and UNESCO-listed.

   Evening

   Overnight in Tbilisi.

4. Day 4

   Tbilisi on foot

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel.

   Tbilisi old city tour

   The capital has stood on the banks of the Mtkvari since the fifth century, at the crossing point between Asia and Europe, and the architecture reads like a list of everyone who came through: medieval, neoclassical and modern within a few streets. The walk takes in the Metekhi church and plateau, the Narikala fortress from the fourth century, the sulphur bathhouses of Abanotubani and the Leghvtakhevi gorge, Sioni Cathedral, the mosque and the synagogue, Sharden street, Erekle II street and the Iron and Cotton streets, the Bridge of Peace, and Anchiskhati from the sixth century. It ends at the old walls beside the Rezo Gabriadze marionette theatre.

   Tbilisi cable car

   The line up to Narikala. Entry included.

   Sameba Cathedral

   The Holy Trinity Cathedral, the largest of the Georgian Orthodox church, built between 1995 and 2004 to mark 1,500 years since the church became self-governing.

   Evening

   Overnight in Tbilisi.

5. Day 5

   Kakheti: Bodbe and Sighnaghi

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel.

   Bodbe Monastery

   Just outside Sighnaghi, and one of the main pilgrimage sites in the country: the relics of St Nino, the fourth-century woman who converted the Georgians, are kept here. The terrace looks out over the Alazani valley to the Caucasus.

   Sighnaghi

   A small hill town above the Alazani valley, walled in the eighteenth century with twenty-eight towers. Small enough to walk in an afternoon, and its marriage registry opens twenty-four hours a day, which is where the city-of-love reputation comes from.

   Evening

   Overnight in Tbilisi.

6. Day 6

   The Military Highway to Kazbegi

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel.

   Full day

   Zhinvali Reservoir and Ananuri

   The road north follows the Aragvi to the Zhinvali reservoir — 11.5 square kilometres, 75 metres at its deepest, and the source of drinking water for around half of Tbilisi. Ananuri fortress stands on its bank, seat of the dukes of Aragvi in the thirteenth century though the walls are seventeenth. Two churches stand inside; the larger, the Church of the Mother of God, was finished in 1689.

   Panorama Gudauri

   A round stone-and-concrete structure on the Georgian Military Highway near the Gudauri ski resort, overlooking the Devil's Valley. Built in 1983 to mark friendship between Soviet Georgia and Soviet Russia, with a long tiled mural inside running through scenes from both histories.

   Gergeti Trinity Church

   The last climb is by four-wheel drive, included both ways. The church stands alone on the hill above Stepantsminda, with Mount Kazbek behind it.

   Evening

   Back down the highway. Overnight in Tbilisi.

7. Day 7

   A last morning in Tbilisi, then departure

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel and check out.

   Chronicles of Georgia

   Zurab Tsereteli's monument above the Tbilisi Sea: a stand of bronze-clad columns over thirty metres high, carved with Georgian kings and queens on the upper register and scenes from the life of Christ below. Begun in 1985 and never finished, which is part of the effect.

   Mtatsminda Park and the funicular

   The funicular climbs Mtatsminda to the park on the ridge, with the whole city laid out below it. Entry included.

   The Dry Bridge flea market

   An open-air market near the Dry Bridge — antiques, Soviet-era oddments, silver, cameras, porcelain and a great deal that defies description. Worth an hour before the airport.

   Transfer to Tbilisi International Airport for your flight home or onward.

Entry rules, tourism taxes and health requirements change without notice and depend on your passport. Everything above is confirmed by our operations desk before your booking is finalised.