Guided forest & herb walk
A slow foraging walk from the tents into the forest with a local herbalist: wild herbs, mushrooms in season, and whatever the old village trees are giving that week.
- Duration
- 1-2 hours
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Group size
- 4-14
- Seasons
- Spring / Summer / Autumn
About this experience
The walk starts at the tents and goes straight up through the meadow behind the camp. Ten minutes later the village is below you, the spruce begins, and the group has already spread out, because by then everyone is looking at the ground.
A local herbalist leads it, someone who grew up on this hillside and reads it the way you read your own street: which herbs go into tea, which leaves the village cooks with, where the parasols and porcini come up after rain, and which mushrooms you learn to recognise so you can leave them alone. On the way there are old pear and apple trees to pick from, ferns taller than the kids, gentians, and spruce resin you can lift off the bark with a fingernail and smell for the rest of the day.
It is a walk, not a hike. One climb, then a slow wander, an hour and a half to two hours with a lot of standing around. No equipment, nothing to carry, and children come along. They are usually the ones who spot the first mushroom.
You come back down as the light goes orange over the valley, and everything gets laid out on the long table on the ridge: mushrooms, herbs, flowers, named one by one over coffee. It is one of the things retreat groups ask for most, and it is the walk after which the forest stops being scenery.
What to expect
- Led by a local herbalist from the village
- Uphill through the meadow behind the tents, then into the spruce forest
- Wild herbs for tea and cooking, and what the village actually does with them
- Mushrooms in season, parasols and porcini, and the ones you learn to leave alone
- Old pear and apple trees on the way, ferns, gentians, spruce resin
- 1.5 to 2 hours at a slow pace, easy underfoot, no equipment needed
- Children are welcome and usually find the first mushroom
- Everything gathered is laid out and named back at the long table
Good to know
No. It is a walk, not a hike: one climb up the meadow behind the camp, then a slow wander. We stop constantly, because that is the point. If you can walk uphill for ten minutes you are fine.
Some of it, and the guide tells you which. A lot of what grows here is edible and the village has been cooking with it forever. A few things, like the red fly agaric everyone wants to photograph, you learn to recognise so you can leave them alone.
Mushrooms depend on the rain, so some walks are herb and fruit walks instead. Late summer and autumn after wet weather give the best odds. The walk is worth doing either way.
Yes, families do this one a lot. The smallest get carried up the first stretch and run the rest of it.
Spring to autumn, often in the late afternoon, so you are walking back down with the sunset over the valley.
Pricing
| Guided walk, per group | 300 GEL |
| Group size | 4 to 14 guests |
Rough numbers to plan around. The final quote always comes from Anastasia.
