4 Days (Kutaisi to Tbilisi) – West, South and Capital

Gelati was medieval Georgia's Oxford: an academy founded in 1106 by King David the Builder, where philosophers translated and taught beneath golden mosaics. The great Virgin mosaic of the main church survives, one of the finest in the Caucasus, alongside layers of superb frescoes. David himself lies buried under the gateway stone, so that all who enter step over their king. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, for many travellers, the most moving building in western Georgia.

Prometheus Cave is western Georgia's underground cathedral: 1.4 km of walkable galleries dripping with stalactites, stone curtains and calcite pools, all discreetly lit. The route ends, water level allowing, with a boat ride along a subterranean river, a rare experience anywhere in the world. The temperature is a constant 14 degrees, welcome on any summer day. It is the largest show cave in the country, and it feels like it.

Martvili Canyon looks invented: jade-green water sliding between tall moss-covered walls of limestone, with waterfalls dropping straight into the gorge. Once the private bathing place of the Dadiani princes, it is now explored by inflatable boat, gliding beneath fern-hung cliffs. Wooden walkways above give a second, bird's-eye reading of the same emerald water. It is the single most photogenic half-day in Samegrelo.

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.

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.