Living Heritage Georgia
Eight days through Georgia’s living traditions, from Mtskheta to Ushguli
Georgia’s heritage is unusual in how much of it remains in use. Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta is not a monument with a rope line; it is the working centre of Georgian Orthodoxy. Polyphonic singing, recognised by UNESCO as a masterpiece of intangible heritage, is still how village men mark a good table. The stone towers of Upper Svaneti still belong to the families who built them. This itinerary moves through that living fabric over eight days and three distinct landscapes. It opens in Tbilisi and Mtskheta, where Jvari Monastery looks down on the meeting of two rivers and seventeen centuries of Christianity. It pauses for an evening of polyphony sung close enough to feel. Then it climbs into Svaneti — to Mestia’s museums and tower houses, and on to Ushguli, the highest continuously inhabited village in Europe, beneath the wall of Mount Shkhara. Spring and autumn departures coincide with the Art Gene folk festival circuit.
Art-Gene Festival
This journey is timed around Art-Gene Festival — Open Air Museum of Ethnography, Tbilisi.
See the 2026 calendarThe programme.
Tbilisi: First Reading of the City
Arrive and settle into a hotel in the old town. An orientation walk traces the city’s layers — the Abanotubani sulphur baths, the climb to Narikala fortress, the synagogue, mosque, and basilicas packed into a few hundred metres of Kala. A welcome dinner introduces the group and the route ahead.
Mtskheta: Svetitskhoveli and Jvari
A short drive to Mtskheta, Georgia’s ancient capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Stand under the eleventh-century vaults of Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, then climb to Jvari Monastery for its sixth-century geometry and the view over the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi. Lunch with the Mtskheta Heritage Guild follows.
An Evening of Polyphony
A morning at the Dry Bridge market and the National Museum’s gold of Colchis. In the late afternoon, a workshop at Tbilisi Polyphony Hall: a master ensemble demonstrates the three-voice structure of Georgian song, then teaches the group a simple chakrulo line. Dinner is a supra where the songs return naturally.
The Long Road to Svaneti
A travel day west along the Rioni valley and up the Enguri gorge, the reservoir’s improbable green below and the peaks of the High Caucasus closing in. Arrive in Mestia by evening and settle into a family-run lodge beneath the town’s medieval defensive towers. Dinner is Svan: kubdari, tashmijabi, local wine.
Mestia’s Towers and Museums
A day in Mestia. Climb a twelfth-century tower house with the Svaneti Tower House Museum and learn how families lived, fought, and wintered within these stone keeps. The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography holds icons and manuscripts mountain villages guarded for a thousand years. An optional walk reaches the Koruldi meadows viewpoint.
Ushguli Beneath Shkhara
A four-wheel-drive journey up the Enguri headwaters to Ushguli, the UNESCO-listed cluster of villages at 2,100 metres, the highest continuously inhabited settlement in Europe. Walk among its towers to the Lamaria church, Mount Shkhara filling the head of the valley. Lunch in a village house before returning to Mestia.
Return and Kakhetian Farewell
Fly from Mestia’s mountain airstrip to Tbilisi, weather permitting, or return by road through Zugdidi. The evening gathers the journey at Keto Supra House: a farewell supra with a tamada, the polyphonic lines learned on day three, and toasts to the places now behind you.
Departure from Tbilisi
A final morning at leisure — a last walk through the old town, the Dry Bridge market for those still hunting, or simply coffee on a Sololaki balcony. Airport transfers run throughout the day, and extensions to Kakheti’s wine country or Batumi can be arranged in advance.
- Seven nights’ accommodation: four in Tbilisi hotels, three in a family-run Mestia lodge
- All breakfasts, four lunches, and four dinners including two supras
- Polyphonic singing workshop with a master ensemble at Tbilisi Polyphony Hall
- Guided visits to Mtskheta, Svetitskhoveli, and Jvari with the Mtskheta Heritage Guild
- Tower house visit and museum entries in Mestia, and the full-day Ushguli excursion by 4x4
- Domestic flight or road transfer between Svaneti and Tbilisi
- All ground transport and an English-speaking cultural host throughout
- International flights to and from Tbilisi
- Personal travel and medical insurance
- Meals not specified in the itinerary
- Optional walks requiring a local mountain guide beyond the set programme
- Gratuities for hosts, drivers, and singers
- Single room supplement, limited in Svaneti
Giorgi Beridze
IFMGA Mountain Guide · Georgian, English, Russian
Giorgi was born in Stepantsminda, in sight of Mount Kazbek, and has guided in the Greater Caucasus for fifteen seasons — summer trekking and alpine routes from the Kazbegi valleys to Svaneti, winter freeride and touring out of Gudauri. He carries the full IFMGA qualification, the international benchmark for mountain guiding, and is known among clients for conservative judgement and an unforced calm at altitude. Off the mountain he keeps bees, which he discusses with the same seriousness as snowpack.
Certified venues on this journey.
In the same spirit.
Regional Taste of Georgia
A six-day eating itinerary across three regions: the Dezerter Bazaar and khinkali masterclasses in Tbilisi, bread ovens and the supra ritual in Kakheti, and the distinct dairy-rich table of the Adjarian coast.
Run the Caucasus
A guided trail running camp across two High Caucasus regions: the Juta valley, Gergeti Trinity, and the Chaukhi massif from Kazbegi, then the Koruldi lakes above Mestia in Svaneti — for runners comfortable with sustained mountain distance.
Creative Tbilisi Insider
Four days inside Tbilisi’s creative life: working artist studios, contemporary galleries, Soviet modernist architecture from the Chronicle of Georgia to the brutalist Bank of Georgia tower, and evenings in the city’s natural wine bars.