Kintsvisi Monastery

Kintsvisi holds a place in art history because of one fresco, and that fresco genuinely justifies the detour. On the north wall of St Nicholas church an angel announces the Resurrection to the myrrh-bearing women. The face, the softness of the pigment and the lightness of the gesture depart so far from the period standard that the Angel of Kintsvisi has become the emblem of medieval Georgian painting.

The monastery was built around the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, in the reign of Queen Tamar, at the peak of the Georgian golden age. Three churches stand in the complex, the main one a brick cross-domed church. Inside there are also portraits of Tamar and her son Giorgi Lasha, which makes the building a historical document as well as an artistic one.

The setting matters too. The monastery sits in dense deciduous forest north of Kareli, above a small valley, and in autumn the colour here is remarkable. It is an active monastery with monks in residence, the silence is close to total, and visitor numbers are low.

Kintsvisi is often skipped simply because it lies fifteen kilometres off the motorway — which is precisely why you tend to have it to yourself.