Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan

Keep heading north via the Haghpat Monastery and you’ll enter Georgia. Tbilisi, the capital, is a five hour drive from Yerevan and provides a brilliant base exuding green space and cosmopolitan café culture. To the east of Tbilisi the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral and the 6th century Jvari Monastery can be found within the Holy City of Mtskheta. Three further hours east brings you to the former ancient capital, Kutaisi. A day trip to good old Batumi by the Black Sea is always welcome in the summer with Gelati Monastery, Khertvisi Fortress and Gori, the birthplace of Stalin, all to be found on the route back to Tbilisi – after picking up a few bottles of the local red in the Kakheti wine region, of course.

Once in Azerbaijan you’ll embrace ancient and modern contrasts, with one of the region’s oldest mosques, the Juma Mosque of Shamakhi, and the shimmering skyline of Baku on the Caspian Sea. The trading route from the city of Shaki in northwest Azerbaijan to Baku was one of the region’s most important, and a visit to Baku’s amazing Old Town – as opposed to its out-of-control oil boom expansion – reveals insight into the streets, temples and caravanserais of the past. This is a country of extremes where Islam meets capitalism on the confluence of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.