Tbilisi and the South – Borjomi and Vardzia

Uplistsikhe was already ancient when Christianity arrived: a whole town of halls, sanctuaries, wine cellars and a theatre cut into a sandstone ridge above the Mtkvari, inhabited from the early first millennium BC. Caravans of the Silk Road watered here, and pagan priests read fortunes in its smoke-blackened chambers. You wander freely between the caves, climbing to a basilica that crowns the rock. Sunset turns the whole hillside honey-gold.

Borjomi's lightly sparkling mineral water made this forest gorge famous across half the world; you can still drink it warm, straight from the source, in the town's landscaped park. All around rises Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, one of Europe's largest, with hiking trails threading endless conifer forest. Romanov princes built their summer palace here for the climate. It remains the classic Georgian spa town, pine air included.

In the 12th century Queen Tamar's builders carved an entire city into a cliff above the Mtkvari: thirteen floors of dwellings, chapels, refectories and wine cellars, home to thousands of monks. An earthquake later sliced the mountain open, exposing the honeycomb you climb through today. Frescoes from Georgia's golden age still glow in the rock-cut Church of the Dormition. Walking its tunnels and stairways, with swallows wheeling over the valley below, feels like entering a legend that happens to be real.

Rabati Castle in Akhaltsikhe is a city within walls: a Georgian church, an Ottoman mosque, a synagogue quarter, gardens, towers and a keep, restored into one fairytale labyrinth. Every staircase opens a new courtyard; every rampart a new view over the town and hills. The mix of styles tells the true story of Georgia's south, where empires met for centuries. Come late in the day, when the stone glows and the crowds thin.