David Gareja Monastery

David Gareja is a complex of rock-cut monasteries on the slopes of Mount Gareja, in the semi-desert of southern Kakheti on the border with Azerbaijan. Hundreds of cells, churches, chapels and refectories are carved into the soft sandstone. The main site is the Lavra, the monastery of St David, still home to monks, with cave cells and churches around a walled courtyard. The landscape is a surprise after the green Alazani Valley: bare, wind-cut ridges striped in pink, ochre and green, with views far into Azerbaijan.

Most visitors also hike up the ridge behind the Lavra to the Udabno monastery, about 45 minutes uphill, where cave churches hold wall paintings from the 10th to 13th centuries, including an 11th-century Last Supper in the refectory. The trail follows the ridge that marks the unsettled Georgia–Azerbaijan border, and access has been restricted at times; follow the instructions of border guards. There is no shade and the ground is loose, so go early, carry water and wear proper shoes.

St David of Gareja, one of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers, settled here in the 6th century, and his disciples Dodo and Lukiane expanded the monastic community. The complex flourished from the late 11th to the early 13th centuries, with royal patronage and a celebrated school of wall painting. In 1615 Safavid Persian troops attacked, killed the monks and destroyed manuscripts and art. In the Soviet period the area was used for military training until public protests in the late 1980s.