Fortress · Atskuri, Akhaltsikhe Municipality, Samtskhe-Javakheti
Atskuri Fortress
აწყურის ციხე
A cliff-top fortress over the Mtkvari at Atskuri village, long a defensive post for the Borjomi valley, with a narrow tunnel cut down to the riverbank so the garrison could reach water during sieges.
Where it is
41.7285, 43.1655
Why go
Wars and earthquakes brought Atskuri's walls down again and again, and each rebuilding left its own layer in the masonry, which is still visible. The ruins spread over a wide area with the citadel at the highest point, and inside the circuit are the remains of a church with fragments of fresco. The fortress was abandoned in the 1820s. At the foot of the hill stands Atskuri Cathedral, a separate monument, and the two make a single stop that fits easily into a day around Borjomi.
Near Atskuri Fortress
Monastery
Sapara Monastery
A working monastery screened by forest and yellowish cliffs near the village of Ghrele outside Akhaltsikhe, where the domed thirteenth-century Church of St Saba stands beside a tenth-century Dormition church.
18 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Khertvisi Fortress
A tenth-century citadel and ring of walls on a rocky cape where the Paravani meets the Mtkvari, on the valley road between Akhaltsikhe and Vardzia.
29 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Okros Tsikhe
A medieval fortress of the Jaqeli princes on a high rocky height above the Kvabliani valley in Adigeni Municipality, its walls of roughly trimmed stone blocks stepping down the ridge on both flanks.
34 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Tmogvi Fortress
The ruined walls of a medieval fortress-town on a steep height above the Mtkvari gorge downstream of Vardzia, which once guarded the route between the Javakheti plateau and the river valley.
39 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ