Church · Akhmeta Municipality, Kakheti
Kvetera Church
კვეტერა · Kvetera Fortress
A small tenth-century domed church with four apses, standing on a hilltop inside the abandoned fortress town of Kvetera on the right bank of the Ilto near Akhmeta.
Where it is
42.0561, 45.0994
Why go
Kvetera was once one of the centres of the Principality of Kakheti, and the church crowns what remains: an inner and a lower fortress, walls, a palace, a hall church, and a reservoir that fed the town through clay pipes. The domed church itself is a radial tetraconch, with niches between its apses and a round drum carrying the dome, and it is on Georgia's tentative list for World Heritage. The fortress town inspired Konstantin Gamsakhurdia's novel The Hand of the Great Master. It stands where the lowland meets the mountains, on routes towards Telavi via Akhmeta and towards Tbilisi via Tianeti, so it works as a stop on either road.
Near Kvetera Church
Fortress
Bochorma Fortress
A mountain fortress in Tianeti municipality whose walls and towers follow the terrain around a tenth-century church of St George, once the key to controlling Kakheti.
17 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Monastery
Ikalto Monastery
A monastery in Ikalto, a short drive from Telavi, founded in the sixth century by Zenon, one of the Syrian fathers, and home to a medieval academy until Shah Abbas I's army burned it in 1616.
27 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Ujarma Fortress
A fortress town on a rocky ridge above the right bank of the Iori near the Gombori Pass, founded under King Aspagur and made a royal residence by Vakhtang Gorgasali in the fifth century.
28 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Historic site
Batonistsikhe
The walled residence of the Kakhetian kings in Telavi, with a royal palace, court churches and a royal bath enclosed by a five-metre battlemented wall.
35 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ