Vardzia, Georgia

Vardzia is a monastery and a city cut into the Erusheti cliff in the twelfth century — thirteen storeys, more than four hundred rooms, and a church whose frescoes have survived eight hundred years of earthquakes and invasions. Queen Tamar held court here, and the scale is still hard to take in from the valley floor.

The south around it is Georgia's most layered. Akhaltsikhe's Rabati fortress has been rebuilt by every empire that passed through. Sapara monastery hides in forest above the road, and the Javakheti plateau opens west toward lakes and the Armenian border. The food changes too — denser, heavier, closer to Anatolia.

We bring travellers here with a guide who can read the frescoes and a driver who knows the back roads, and we leave time for the villages, the cheese and the long views across the plateau.