Hiking in Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains

For anyone searching for the quieter, lesser-known side of Europe, Georgia’s Svaneti region is the perfect find. Tucked away on the Asian edge of the continent, it’s free of the cruise ships, package tours and over-development that has come to clog vast swathes of Italy, France and Croatia, thanks to its geographical isolation, difficult roads and brutal six-month winter.

Visit in spring and summer (early June to mid-October), though, and it’s one of the world’s best hiking regions, filled with ancient villages, tousled meadows upholstered in wildflowers, and excellent food and wine.

Day one of my five-day trek ended in Adishi, just as the sun was falling behind the 5000-meter peaks of the surrounding Caucasus mountains. The village was dotted with charming houses built from rough, crumbling stone, and reaching up between them like thick fingers were stone watchtowers dating back to the middle ages, that once housed villagers during times of invasion.

Homestays are the main accommodation option in this region, giving you the perfect opportunity to live the life of a local and put money directly into the pockets of villagers. In Georgia, dinner guests are considered gifts from God, and meals in the Svaneti region are generally all made with fresh local produce since the locals are mostly self-sufficient farmers. The dining table that first night groaned with plates of warm khachapuri cheese bread, badrijan nigzit roasted eggplant topped with walnut paste, tomato-based chakapuli meat stews, and jugs of house-made wine fermented underground using an 8000-year-old, UNESCO-protected technique, in terracotta urns called kvevri.

When I fell into my single bed later that evening, the sound of the river rushing through the valley below, the skin across my stomach was tight. The beauty of hiking journeys is, of course, that you can eat as much as you like since you walk it all off. On the way to another medieval village named Iprari the next day, I hiked through fields dotted with handsome wild horses, cows, and friendly, fluffy-tailed mountain dogs. I crossed a rushing river on horseback and pushed my sweaty body to the top of the challenging, 2720-metre Chkhutnieri Pass. From up there, the rumpled, snow-capped mountains we’d been hiking past split open revealing a valley, the silver snake of the river slicing through its center.

If you’re worried about your aching muscles, don’t. You’ll likely end your hike back in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, which is famous for its Abanotubani sulfur baths, set inside a historical complex where you can choose between private or public bathing in sulfur-infused pools, sauna, or massage.

The mighty Caucasus mountains have one of the richest alpine flora in the world. As you hike, you’ll pass yellow daisies, buttercups and azaleas, purple cowslips, and wild orchids, all bending their heads in the breeze as fat, fuzzy bumblebees and butterflies hover over them. Take your time, stopping to laze in the meadows eating snacks – whole fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, boiled eggs, hunks of cheese bread – or to refill your water bottle from a mountain spring.

If the weather turns wild, it’s an excellent excuse to bunker down in one of the guest houses. Inside, you’re likely to find exactly what I did - local women sitting and chatting around a pot-belly stove, warming pails of fresh cow’s milk and baking Georgian flatbread, and offering you glasses of the chacha local moonshine. A portal into an ancient world.

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