West and North to Racha-Lechkhumi

Racha-Lechkhumi is off the main tourist beat yet it offers stunning, wide-angle landscapes of forests, mountains and some vineyards. The peaks may be less high than those of Upper Svaneti or Kazbegi but the feel here is intimate yet wild. This sparsely populated region includes Racha, Lechkhumi and Lower (or Kvemo) Svaneti. (Today, eastern Racha is flanked by Samachablo or Tskhinvali, or South Ossetia, that is currently off limits for Georgians and tourists.)