Khulo

Khulo is a small mountain town of about a thousand people high above the Adjaristskali valley, 88 km east of Batumi and about 920 m above sea level. It is the centre of Upper Adjara, where most villagers are Muslim Georgians and the landscape is one of steep slopes, wooden houses with balconies, hay barns and village mosques. Life here feels very different from the coast, and the food is the region's richest: borano, sinori and butter and cheese from the summer pastures.

Across the gorge, a Soviet-era cable car built in 1985 crosses about 1.7 km to the village of Tago with no pylon in between. It has been closed for repairs in recent years, so ask locally whether it is running. South of town lie the 13th-century Skhalta Cathedral and, higher up, the ruins of Khikhani Fortress, while the Goderdzi ski area and Green Lake are about an hour to the east. Khulo has guesthouses and small hotels, and there is glamping in Tago.

Khulo grew up on the medieval trade road that linked Samtskhe in southern Georgia with the Black Sea coast, and the area has been settled since at least the Bronze Age. Under Ottoman rule most of the population converted to Islam. Nearby Khikhani Fortress, probably built between the 10th and 13th centuries, was held by the Khimshiashvili lords; the rebel Selim Khimshiashvili defended it until his capture and execution by Ottoman forces in 1815. In 1929 Muslim villagers around Khulo rose against Soviet collectivisation, and the revolt was put down by force.