Explore Samtskhe-Javakheti: Vardzia, Borjomi and the Uplands

Vardzia was excavated into the cliff face above the Mtkvari valley in the twelfth century as a monastery and a fortified refuge, and at its height it ran to hundreds of rooms across many levels, entirely hidden behind the rock with concealed entrances. A major earthquake removed the outer face, exposing the whole complex in cross-section — which destroyed its purpose as a hiding place and created the view that draws people now. What survives is a warren of cells, chapels, refectories, storage rooms and water channels connected by rock-cut passages and stairways, climbing steeply. At its heart the Church of the Dormition holds twelfth-century wall paintings in good condition, including a portrait of Queen Tamar made during her lifetime, which makes it a document as well as a decoration. It remains an active monastic site with a small community. The climb is genuinely steep with narrow tunnels and exposed drops in places, so it suits reasonable mobility and is not ideal for anyone badly troubled by enclosed spaces.

Borjomi is a wooded resort town strung along a river gorge, and its mineral water is Georgia's most recognised export by some margin. The central park is where to start: you walk in along the river and drink the water warm from the source, which is a considerably more sulphurous experience than the bottled version prepares anyone for, and there are pools, a cable car up the gorge side and the faded grandeur of a town that has been receiving visitors for well over a century. Behind it lies Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, among the largest protected areas in Europe, with marked trails ranging from short walks to multi-day routes through beech and spruce forest with huts along the way — genuinely serious walking that requires far less logistical effort than the high Caucasus, since the trailheads are reachable and the season is longer. Nearby Abastumani, higher up a side valley, was developed as a mountain-air sanatorium and holds an astrophysical observatory on the ridge above it.

Akhaltsikhe, the regional centre, is dominated by Rabati — a large citadel comprehensively rebuilt in recent years, enclosing a mosque, a church, a synagogue site and a museum within one set of walls. The reconstruction is thorough enough that opinions divide on it, and it is worth knowing in advance that much of what you walk through is new work on old foundations rather than surviving fabric; taken on those terms it is a genuinely enjoyable couple of hours and the museum is good. South and east the land rises onto the Javakheti plateau, a high, open, treeless upland of grassland and shallow lakes that feels nothing like the rest of Georgia — bitterly cold in winter, brief and green in summer, important for migrating birds, and populated by villages with a strong Armenian character in language, church architecture and cooking. Roads up here are exposed and the season is short — the same seasonal arithmetic that governs the northern mountains applies just as firmly here. The region pairs naturally with the cave town in neighbouring Shida Kartli for anyone building a route around rock-cut sites.