"Kutaisi, Georgia’s third-largest city, is a feisty, charmingly ramshackle warren packed with honking Ladas and hollering street vendors. An ideal base for adventures farther afield, it’s situated between Tbilisi and the Black Sea and the gateway to Samegrelo, Georgia’s unsung food capital known for its pepper pastes (ajika) and stretchy cheese grits (elarji), and Svaneti, the untamed mountain region that lays claim to UNESCO-protected watchtowers and Europe’s third-highest peak, Mount Shkhara (altitude: 18,510 feet)."