The Most Beautiful Places in Mtskheta-Mtianeti
6 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Mtskheta-Mtianeti are Shatili, Jvari Monastery, Mtskheta and Mount Kazbek. The list covers 6 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Mtskheta-Mtianeti runs from the lowland heart of Georgian history to the crest of the Greater Caucasus. At its southern end, where the Aragvi meets the Mtkvari, Mtskheta was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Iberia, and it was here that Georgia adopted Christianity in the fourth century. To the north, the Georgian Military Road climbs the Aragvi valley through gorges and high pastures to the glaciers of Kazbek, while to the northeast lie the remote valleys of Khevsureti.
In Mtskheta, Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, rebuilt in the eleventh century, stands on the spot where tradition says the robe of Christ was buried, and remains the spiritual centre of the Georgian Church. Across the river, the sixth-century Jvari Monastery sits alone on a hilltop above the confluence, a compact cross-domed church that became a model for Georgian architecture.
Up the Aragvi, Ananuri combines two churches and defensive towers inside one fortress wall above the turquoise waters of the Zhinvali Reservoir. At the top of the road, Gergeti Trinity Church stands high on a ridge with the snow cone of Mount Kazbek behind it. Kazbek is a dormant volcano, and Georgian legend chained Amirani, a Prometheus-like hero, to its rocks. Far in the mountains, Shatili is a fortified village of stone tower-houses packed tightly together on a slope, built by the Khevsurs to withstand both winter and raids.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shatili | Most beautiful village | |
| 2 | Jvari Monastery, Mtskheta | Monastery | ✓ |
| 3 | Mount Kazbek | Volcano | |
| 4 | Ananuri | Castle | |
| 5 | Svetitskhoveli Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 6 | Gergeti Trinity Church | Church building |
01 Shatili
Georgia42.658° N 45.157° E
Jaba1977 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Shatili looks less like a village than a single stone fortress: some sixty flat-roofed towers and tower-houses are packed together on a rocky shelf above the Arghuni River, linked by covered passages and stairways so that the whole settlement could be defended as one block.
Did you know? The Georgian poet Vazha-Pshavela set the events of his 1888 narrative poem Aluda Ketelauri in Shatili.
02 Jvari Monastery, Mtskheta
Georgia · 13.2 km from Tbilisi41.838° N 44.733° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Jvari stands alone on a rocky hilltop at 656 metres, above the point where the Aragvi runs into the Mtkvari (Kura) and across the water from Mtskheta, the old capital of the kingdom of Iberia.
Did you know? A small kneeling figure carved on the drum of the dome may be a portrait of the church's unknown architect.
03 Mount Kazbek
Georgia42.697° N 44.519° E
Rafał Kozubek · CC BY-SA 3.0 Mount Kazbek is a dormant volcano of 5,054 metres on the main ridge of the Greater Caucasus, and its appeal is simple: it rises alone. Where most high Caucasian peaks hide behind their neighbours, Kazbek stands as a single white cone above the deep valley of the Terek, visible from the road far below.
Did you know? Glaciers on the massif cover a combined area of about 135 square kilometres, flowing down every side of the summit dome.
04 Ananuri
Georgia42.164° N 44.704° E
Image by Makalu from Pixabay Ananuri is the picture everyone takes on the way north from Tbilisi: a walled compound with a tall square tower and two churches, standing on a slope above the Aragvi, with the blue water of the Zhinvali Reservoir spread out below.
Did you know? Four years after the 1739 massacre, local peasants rose against the usurping duke, killed his men and invited King Teimuraz II to rule them directly.
05 Svetitskhoveli Cathedral
Georgia · 14 km from Tbilisi41.842° N 44.721° E
This Photo was taken by Supanut Arunoprayote . Feel free to use any of my images, but please mention me as the author and may send me a message. (สามารถใช้ภาพได้อิสระ แต่กรุณาใส่เครดิตผู้ถ่ายและอาจส่ง ข้อความบอกกล่าวด้วย ) Please do not upload an updated image here without consultation with the Author. The author would like to make corrections only at his own source. This ensures that the changes are preserved. Please if you think that any changes should be required, please inform the author. Otherwise you can upload a new image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract . · CC BY 4.0 Svetitskhoveli, the Cathedral of the Living Pillar, has been the spiritual centre of Georgia for most of the last thousand years. Built of sandy yellow stone and enclosed by fortified walls, it stands in the old town of Mtskheta, where the Aragvi joins the Kura.
Did you know? Inside stands a small stone chapel of the late 13th or early 14th century built as a copy of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
06 Gergeti Trinity Church
Georgia42.662° N 44.620° E
Image by MurrrPhoto from Pixabay Some buildings are beautiful in themselves; Gergeti Trinity is beautiful because of where someone dared to put it. The small stone church stands alone on a grassy ridge at about 2,170 metres, high above the village of Stepantsminda in the Greater Caucasus, with the glaciated cone of Mount Kazbek rising behind it.
Did you know? According to tradition, St Nino's grapevine cross, sheltered here in times of danger, is bound with the saint's own hair.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Mtskheta-Mtianeti?
- On our list, Shatili ranks first, followed by Jvari Monastery, Mtskheta and Mount Kazbek.
- Why is Mtskheta important to Georgia?
- Mtskheta was the capital of the ancient Georgian kingdom of Iberia and the place where Christianity became the state religion in the fourth century. Its historic churches, including Svetitskhoveli and Jvari, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Is Mount Kazbek a volcano?
- Yes. Mount Kazbek is a dormant stratovolcano in the Greater Caucasus, with glaciers covering its upper slopes. Gergeti Trinity Church stands on a ridge below it above the town of Stepantsminda.
- What is Shatili?
- Shatili is a medieval fortified village in the Khevsureti region of the Caucasus, made of dozens of flat-roofed stone tower-houses joined into a single defensive complex.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Mtskheta-Mtianeti?
- In our collection, the places in Mtskheta-Mtianeti are most often mountains (1), volcanoes (1), churches (1) and cathedrals (1).
- How many places are on this list in Mtskheta-Mtianeti?
- The list covers 6 places.