North-West to Svaneti

This chapter travels up to Svaneti, one of Georgia’s most remote and fascinating high-mountain regions. Unlike Kazbegi, which can be accessed pretty quickly from Tbilisi, driving to Svaneti requires time: there may only be 136 kilometres (85 miles) from Zugdidi to Mestia – the main town in Upper, or Zemo, Svaneti – but it can take close to four hours. (Lower, or Kvemo, Svaneti is nearer to Racha and generally lower in altitude.) It’s a long climb on an ever-winding road that follows the course of the Enguri, or Inguri, River as it descends from the giddy heights of the Greater Caucasus, where the glacier-covered mountains reach up to 5,201 metres (17,060 feet), to the Black Sea at Anaklia.