Georgia and Armenia by Road: Tbilisi, Kazbegi, Kakheti and Yerevan, 7 Nights

You are met at Tbilisi International Airport and driven to your hotel, with rooms generally ready by late afternoon. Georgia’s capital sits in a narrow valley along the Mtkvari river, and the evening is free. A short walk to the Bridge of Peace and the old-town lanes below the fortress makes a gentle first taste.

A guided day on foot. You ride the cable car up to the Narikala fortress for the view across the rooftops, then walk down through the domed sulphur baths of Abanotubani. The walk continues along Shardeni Street to the Anchiskhati Basilica, the oldest surviving church in the city, and the crooked clock tower of the Gabriadze puppet theatre.

North along the Georgian Military Road, past the fortress of Ananuri above its turquoise reservoir and up through the ski resort of Gudauri to the Jvari Pass. At Stepantsminda, about three hours from Tbilisi, a jeep takes you up to Gergeti Trinity Church below Mount Kazbek. In heavy snow, roughly December to March, the pass can close and an alternative day is arranged.

East into Kakheti, where Georgians have made wine in clay qvevri for thousands of years. Walled Sighnaghi looks out over the Alazani valley, and Bodbe Monastery below it is the resting place of Saint Nino. You continue to Telavi and the Tsinandali estate with its gardens and old cellars, where a tasting is confirmed with your quote.

Your private vehicle takes you south out of Georgia, crossing into Armenia at Sadakhlo–Bagratashen. With border formalities the journey takes about five to six hours, following the Debed valley before the road climbs and then drops towards the Ararat plain. You reach Yerevan in the afternoon with time to find your bearings around Republic Square.

A day in the hills east of Yerevan. The first-century temple at Garni, the only standing Greco-Roman colonnaded building in the region, sits on the edge of a gorge. Below it the Symphony of Stones is a cliff of hexagonal basalt columns. Further up the valley, Geghard Monastery is partly hewn from the mountainside, its chapels cut into the rock.

A morning drive of about an hour to Tsaghkadzor, a mountain resort on the slopes of Mount Teghenis, where the ropeway climbs above pine forest for wide views. You are back in Yerevan by the afternoon, which is yours: the Cascade steps and their sculptures, the Matenadaran manuscript museum or a café on Northern Avenue.

Breakfast at the hotel, then your driver takes you to Zvartnots International Airport for your onward flight. With an afternoon departure there may be time for the Vernissage open-air market or a last look for Mount Ararat, visible across the border on clear mornings.