Samtavisi Cathedral

Samtavisi is the building that gave the Georgian church facade its face. It was built in 1030 by Bishop Ilarion Samtavneli, and its eastern front — a large carved cross flanked by rhombuses above a row of decorative arches — became the model that dozens of churches across Kartli and Kakheti reproduced over the next two hundred years.

The decoration is the point here. The composition on that eastern wall is so precisely balanced that art historians treat it as a key monument of medieval Georgian architecture, and it repays standing still for a while. Inside the church is far more restrained, with fresco fragments dating from the 15th to the 17th century.

The complex also includes:

• A curtain wall with towers, partly ruined, on the northern side
• A bell tower and the remains of the bishop's palace
• An old graveyard around the church, with carved stone crosses

The dome was rebuilt after an earthquake in the 15th century and differs slightly in proportion from the original, a detail that is obvious once you look at the church from the side.

Samtavisi lies five kilometres off the main highway and is often empty, yet it is under an hour from Tbilisi — which makes it an ideal first stop on any westward route.