Town in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti7 h 10 min by car from Tbilisi4 h 20 min by car from Kutaisi5 h 45 min by car from BatumiPopulation 1,973
Mestia is a town in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti — a region of Georgia, about 7 h 10 min by car from Tbilisi, 4 h 20 min from Kutaisi and 5 h 45 min from Batumi. Home to about 1,973 people.
Mestia is the capital of Upper Svaneti, a mountain town of medieval defensive towers, museums and guesthouses set in a valley beneath the peaks of Ushba and Tetnuldi. Nowhere else in the Caucasus combines such landscape with such living history: Svan families still keep their towers, their icons and a language older than Georgian itself.
The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography holds treasures brought here for safekeeping over centuries. Cable cars rise to Hatsvali and Tetnuldi for skiing in winter and views in summer; day trips reach the glacier at Chalaadi, the Koruldi lakes and the village of Ushguli, the highest permanently inhabited settlement in Europe.
Mestia has a small airport with flights from Tbilisi in good weather, and is otherwise a full day's drive from Kutaisi or Zugdidi. Allow at least two nights.
