Kutaisi is surrounded by UNESCO sites, monasteries and caves. Gelati monastery, founded in 1106, used to be home to an academy of scholars and has brightly coloured Byzantine-style frescoes—there’s one significant one of King David the Builder, who heralded Georgia’s Golden Age. Not far away from Gelati, is the hillside Motsameta monastery overlooking a river gorge. It contains the remains of David and Constantine, two brothers who were captured and tortured in the eighth century trying to keep the region Christian. Another most visited place is the Tetra caves, which take its name from the Georgian word for the colour ‘white’, as the interior is awash with chalk limestone. What makes it unique is that it’s used for wine storage, ageing and tasting. It is also used for speleotherapy, a treatment benefiting those with bronchial asthma and hypertension.

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