We did overnight next to the monastery, beautifully situated uphill in a cypress grove. It was one of two famous medieval Georgian Neoplatonist academies, the other being Gelati near Kutaisi. Shota Rustaveli, the national poet, is thought to have studied here. The main Transfiguration...
Due to weather conditions, we couldn’t enjoy Nekresi’s early Georgian architecture and the views across the Alazani valley. We parked in the main parking, 1,5km from the monastery. From there, we took a shuttle (🚐 3 GEL/return) to reach the top of the steep mountain. The first church is a...
We had gloomy weather at Gremi, the former capital of Kakheti (1466-1672). It was a lively trading town on the Silk Road and a royal residence until being totally devastated by Shah Abbas in 1615. The town never regained its past prosperity, and the kings of Kakheti transferred their...
A mostly paved road brought us to the majestic cathedral in Alaverdi. At the beginning of the 11th century, when Georgia entered its cultural and political golden age, King Kvirike of Kakheti had built a 50m tall cathedral. It remained the tallest church in Georgia for nearly a millennium...
In the late afternoon, we reached a popular valley town Stepantsminda (known as Kazbegi), with the famous hilltop silhouette of Tsminda Sameba Church and the towering snowy cone of Mt Kazbek (5054 m). The main attraction is the the14th-century church sitting above Stepantsminda in 2200 m...
We did overnight in one of the oldest settlements of Transcaucasia, Mtskheta, a town located at the confluence of the Kura and Aragvi rivers, just northwest of Tbilisi. Mtskheta was the capital of Georgia from the 2nd to the 5th century AD. We visited the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, the...
The gravel road took us through depressive villages to a beautiful setting above a bend of the pretty, grapevine-strewn Tana valley. There is located impressively ancient church. Ateni Sioni. It was built in the 7th century and modeled on Mtskheta’s Jvari Church. Beautiful reliefs of...
Sapara Monastery has a dramatic position clinging to a cliff edge. It is a Georgian Orthodox monastery near the village of Ghreli, about 12km southeast of Akhaltsikhe (🚕 30 GEL/return, incl. stops and waiting). The largest of Sapara’s 12 churches, St Saba’s, with outstanding frescoes, was...
Once we left Çoruh Valley, we made a short detour to visit the majestic ruins of the tenth-century Georgian monastery of Oshki. It is considered one of the four Great Cathedrals of the Georgian Orthodox world. It was built during the reign of David III Kuropalates, the ruler of Tao...
We drove to the parking of the Greek Orthodox monastery dedicated to the Theotokos located near Trabzon in the Karadağ Mountains, part of the Pontic Mountains. From there is mandatory to take the minibus to the monastery (🚌 18 TRY/return, 🎫125 TRY). Sümela Monastery, founded by Greeks in...