Mountains and sea
The Greater Caucasus rises two hours north of Tbilisi at Gudauri, where the ski season runs into spring. On the other side of the country the Black Sea coast at Batumi is subtropical, palms and all.
Ski slopes and beaches in one country
The mountains
The Greater Caucasus runs along the whole northern border and is genuinely high: Shkhara, the country's tallest peak, is just over 5,000 metres, and Mount Kazbek is not far behind. Gudauri, the main ski resort, is about two hours from Tbilisi on the road north, sits between roughly 2,000 and 3,300 metres, and holds a season from December into April.
Behind the range is Svaneti, high enough to have been effectively unreachable for much of the year until recently. Its villages are full of medieval stone tower houses, and Ushguli, at around 2,100 metres, is one of the highest continuously inhabited settlements in Europe. Upper Svaneti has been UNESCO-listed since 1996.
The coast
The Black Sea shore is a different country climatically. Adjara, around Batumi, is subtropical and one of the wettest places in Europe — well over two metres of rain a year — which is why tea and citrus grow there and why the boulevard is lined with palms and magnolias. Mtirala National Park, half an hour inland, is temperate rainforest.
And the parts nobody expects
Between the two extremes Georgia manages semi-desert in Vashlovani near the Azerbaijani border, alpine meadow in Borjomi-Kharagauli, and long limestone cave systems in Imereti. For a country the size of Ireland, the range from subtropical coast to high alpine within a day's drive is the thing that surprises people most.
More about Georgia
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