Five days in a valley that was never taken, and never wanted to be. Two hundred stone towers, a language with no written form until the twentieth century, and a glacier you can walk to on flat ground.
- Ushguli at 2,100 m, inhabited through every winter
- Shkhara glacier on foot, at your own pace
- Kubdari and Svan salt at the table of the family that made it
Day by day
- Day 01
In
Fly Natakhtari to Mestia in fifty minutes over the range, or drive eight hours through Zugdidi with the Enguri gorge for company. Both are worth doing; we will tell you which suits your week.
- Day 02
Mestia, at ground level
The Svaneti Museum first: icons from the ninth century, gospels in gold, and the reason a valley this small holds this much. Then a tower with the family that has kept it for six hundred years, and the ladder to the top.
- Day 03
Ushguli
Forty-five kilometres of the worst good road in Georgia, three hours, four hamlets. Lunch inside a tower. Shkhara, 5,193 m, standing at the end of the valley like it was put there for the view.
- Day 04
The glacier, on foot
Eight kilometres each way along the river to the Shkhara glacier tongue. Flat the whole way, no technical ground, no rope. Take the whole day; nobody is waiting.
- Day 05
Out
Hatsvali chairlift for the last view over the range, then the road or the plane, whichever you did not use coming in.
What is included
- Private 4x4 and a driver who lives on this road
- Your tamada for the whole journey
- All breakfasts and dinners, tower lunch in Ushguli
- Museum and tower entries, glacier day guide
What is not
- The Natakhtari-Mestia flight, if you take it - about 65 euro a seat
- Flights into Georgia
- Travel insurance
The practical part
- Where you sleep
-
Sami Mta or Hotel Posta, Mestia, three nights
A guesthouse in Ushguli, one night - there is nothing else, and it is better than it sounds
- When it works
- Late June to early October. Before and after that the Ushguli road is snow, and the honest answer is that the trip does not work.
- The pace
- One long day in, then short ones. Ushguli sits at 2,100 m: nobody needs to be fit, everybody needs a wool layer.
Towers of Svaneti
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