Kazbegi and Alpine Valleys Tour from Tbilisi (3 Days)

The Georgian Military Highway has carried invaders, poets and traders across the Caucasus for two thousand years; today it is one of the world's most scenic drives. Ananuri fortress, its churches huddled inside crenellated walls above the turquoise Zhinvali reservoir, is the road's postcard. Higher up, the Soviet-era Friendship Monument balances on the rim of the Gudauri bowl with a 360-degree mountain panorama. Every kilometre climbs deeper into drama.

Few images say 'Georgia' like Gergeti Trinity Church standing alone at 2170 m against the glaciers of Mount Kazbek. The drive itself, along the Georgian Military Highway, is one of the world's great mountain roads, past fortresses, gorges and the high Gudauri bowl. In Stepantsminda the air is thin and the light changes by the minute, so every visit produces a different photograph. Whether you come for a day or stay the night, this is the Caucasus at its most iconic, and it never disappoints.

Behind Kazbegi hide two valleys most visitors never see. Truso is a wide, wild corridor of mineral travertines, ruined towers and half-abandoned villages, painted orange by iron springs. Juta, at 2200 m, sits beneath the jagged towers of the Chaukhi massif, Georgia's 'little Dolomites', with meadow trails made for unhurried walking. Both offer the high Caucasus without the crowds: just horses, wind and enormous views.

Mtskheta is where Georgia became Christian in 337 AD, and it has never stopped being sacred. Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, burial place of kings, is said to hold the robe of Christ beneath its floor; on the cliff opposite, the 6th-century Jvari Monastery looks down on the meeting of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers, one of the country's defining views. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, twenty minutes from Tbilisi. No visit to Georgia is complete without them.