Shio Mgvime Monastery sits in a dry limestone gorge west of Mtskheta, a setting that feels more remote than its short drive from town suggests. The monastery is associated with Shio, one of the 6th-century Assyrian Fathers credited with strengthening Georgian monastic life, and its churches and caves still hold a spare, early-Christian atmosphere.
It makes an excellent addition to Mtskheta once you have seen Svetitskhoveli and Jvari. The architecture is quieter and less monumental, but the landscape does much of the work: pale rock, scrubby slopes, and a monastic compound pressed into the side of the gorge.