The best day trips from Tbilisi

Twenty minutes from Tbilisi. The old capital of the Georgian kingdom, Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in the town, and Jvari Monastery on the hill above the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers.

You can be back in Tbilisi for lunch. Nothing else in the country gives you this much for this little travelling, and most people do it on their first morning without regretting it.

Ninety minutes to two hours east. Sighnaghi on its ridge above the Alazani valley, Bodbe monastery, and as many wineries as you have appetite for.

The single thing that decides whether this day is memorable or ordinary: call the wineries in advance. The small family qvevri producers will sit you down, open several bottles and explain what they are doing. Walk in without a booking and you will be shown the room they keep for people who walk in without a booking.

If you are drinking, do not drive. This is the day to have a driver.

North on the Georgian Military Highway. Ananuri fortress on the Zhinvali reservoir is about an hour and a quarter out; Gudauri and the Russia–Georgia Friendship Monument are around two hours.

This works well as a day: you get the reservoir, the fortress, the mountain road and the viewpoint, and you are home for dinner. In winter Gudauri is the ski resort, which makes it a different day entirely and a good one.

Tbilisi to Stepantsminda is about 155 km and realistically three hours or more each way, on a mountain road where you cannot make up time. Add the transfer up to Gergeti Trinity Church and you are looking at six to seven hours of travel for perhaps two hours at the top.

Everyone sells it as a day trip and thousands of people do it. It is still the wrong way to see the best view in the country. Stay one night in Stepantsminda and you get the church in late afternoon light and again at sunrise, which is when it is worth the journey.