Before You Die: the Most Beautiful Place on Earth? by Andrew Mueller

Ushguli, Georgia. In the least accessible part of this broken-down country lurks what might be the most beautiful place on earth. Ushguli is a tiny one-street village at the highest point of the mountainous Svaneti region, at the end of an awful road along the border with the fractious Georgian province of Abkhazia (Russian troops patrol the area ­ in theory keeping the peace, in practice trying to sell bits of their kit to passing motorists). The ancient watchtowers of Ushguli, which look like giant mutant chess pieces, are cradled in an impossibly green valley leading toward the spectral ice-and-granite presence of Mount Shkara.