BBC Travel: “Europe’s fierce, fabled villages”

The Caucasus Mountain region of Svaneti is home to high mountain peaks, thousand-year-old defensive towers and an intense indigenous people who are trying to keep traditions alive, writes Audrey Scott and Daniel Noll for BBC travel online.

After trekking 65km over three days through the Upper Svaneti region, from Zhibeshi, a village just outside Mestia (Svaneti’s administrative capital), to Ushguli, the highest inhabited village in Europe, the pair have written about their experiences of meeting local Svans who have created a unique language and lifestyle.

More than just a physical challenge of hiking up and over mountain passes, the trek gave incredible insight into the challenges the villages and its inhabitants have faced, navigating the fine line between modernizing and keeping past traditions alive,” writes Scott.