Svaneti
Stone defence towers under glaciers. The most remote and the most photographed.
What you would see
Mestia tower houses
Mestia is the main town of Svaneti, and the stone defensive towers standing among its houses were built between the ninth and thirteenth centuries — one per family, for protection from raids and from each other. Around two hundred still stand in the valley.
Ushguli village
At 2,100 metres, one of the highest permanently inhabited villages in Europe, a UNESCO site of stone houses and towers under the Shkhara glacier. The road in is rough and takes two hours from Mestia, and that difficulty is why it still looks the way it does.
Shkhara glacier walk
A flat walk of about three hours each way from Ushguli up the valley to the foot of Shkhara, Georgia's highest mountain at 5,193 metres, ending at a glacial lake that reflects the whole face of it. You can ride it on horseback instead.