Mestia and the Svan Towers

Mestia is the administrative and tourist centre of Upper Svaneti, sitting at roughly 1,500 metres in the upper Enguri gorge. What makes it unusual is that its history is not locked inside a museum: the stone defence towers, most of them dating from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, still stand in ordinary family yards. Svan households built them for two overlapping reasons — protection from raiders, and shelter during avalanches and the long blood-feud disputes that shaped local law.

The old quarters of Lanchvali, Lagami and Lekhtagi are separated by footbridges and narrow lanes, and you can walk the lot in half a day. The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography holds processional crosses, icons, chased metalwork and manuscripts that survived precisely because the region was so hard to reach; several pieces were hidden in mountain churches for centuries. The Mikheil Khergiani House-Museum, in the tower house of Georgia's most famous climber, is worth a separate half hour.

What you will actually see:

• Machubi — the traditional Svan house where family and livestock wintered in one hall
• Seti Square — the town centre, with cafes, the information point and the guide exchange
• The Cross viewpoint — a short climb above town with the twin summits of Ushba ahead

Mestia is also a base. Routes to the Chalaadi glacier, the Koruldi lakes, the Hatsvali and Tetnuldi ski areas and Ushguli all start here, and the choice of guesthouses and food is the widest in the region.