Traveling to Georgia: on foot through the wild High Caucasus

A trip to Georgia takes you to where Europe ends and Asia has not quite begun, wedged between the Black Sea and the mighty peaks of the Greater Caucasus. Right at this seam between the continents, we set off on foot: hiking and trekking in Georgia, into one of the last truly wild mountain ranges in Europe.

Our route took us to Svaneti, one of Georgia's most spectacular hiking regions, a mountain region so secluded for centuries that it preserved its own language, its own laws and its fortified stone towers. In Ushguli, one of the highest permanently inhabited villages in Europe, these centuries-old Svan towers rise into the sky as if time had stood still.

From there, the trek led us over high passes of the Caucasus: through snowfields, along raging glacial streams and across ridges where the mountains pile up in every direction. There are no more roads here, only paths that shepherds have used for generations, and pack horses carrying our luggage across the steep terrain.

What surprised us most on our hike through Georgia were the people. In Georgia, a guest is considered a gift, and that is no empty phrase. Again and again we were invited to strangers' tables, to a supra, the traditional Georgian feast with endless toasts, homemade wine (Georgia is considered the cradle of winemaking) and khinkali, until no one could eat another bite.

At the end we stood beneath Mount Kazbek, one of the highest mountains in the Caucasus. On a hill before it sits the lonely Gergeti Trinity Church, for more than 700 years, buffeted by wind and clouds. Once you have hiked through Georgia, you know: this country in the Caucasus is not something you simply tick off. It is an adventure between worlds that leaves you changed.