Kazbegi, Georgia

Kazbegi is the Caucasus at its most direct. Mount Kazbek — Mkinvartsveri, the ice-capped one — stands 5,054 metres above Stepantsminda, and the Georgian Military Highway runs beneath it like a seam. Gergeti Trinity Church sits alone on its ridge at 2,170 metres, and on a clear morning the glacier behind it turns the colour of old silver.

The valley rewards more than a photograph. Walk up to Gergeti before the vans arrive, drink from the mineral springs at the Jvari pass, eat khinkali in a village hall where the menu is whatever was made that morning. Higher still, the route toward Kazbek's weather station crosses moraine and meadow — a serious walk, but one you can taste at your own pace.

We keep groups small and days loose — a private 4x4 up the Dariali gorge, an afternoon with a Khevi family, and enough unscheduled time that a change in the weather becomes part of the plan rather than a problem with it.