Lisi Lake

Lisi is the city's lake rather than a visitor attraction. It sits on the plateau behind Saburtalo, some two hundred and forty metres above the centre, twenty-odd minutes' drive away — but the air, the wind and the view are already different up there.

The lake itself is small and natural, and a surfaced path of about three and a half kilometres runs the whole way round it. The path is the point. Mornings and evenings it fills with runners, cyclists, pushchairs and dogs, and a full circuit at a gentle pace takes around forty minutes.

What is there:

• several cafes on the south shore with open terraces

• outdoor gym equipment and bicycle hire

• horses for rides up onto the surrounding hills

• water birds, ducks and herons, and terrapins on the bank in summer

Be clear about one thing: this is not a swimming lake. The water is silty and weedy and the margins are muddy; people who want to swim use the pools at the clubs beside it.

In clear weather, particularly after rain or on a cold winter day, the snow line of the Greater Caucasus appears along the northern horizon. That is probably the best single reason to come up.

Over the last decade a new residential district has taken the eastern side, and it is no longer wild ground. The western shore is still open and grassy, and that is the half worth walking.

The lake is fed by rain and snowmelt and drops noticeably by late summer, leaving a wide band of mud around the edge in August. In exchange, May covers the plateau in wildflowers and opens the tracks up onto the hills behind: fifty minutes of walking from the shore puts you on the crest, with the city on one side and empty, treeless ridges on the other. That combination — a city view and genuine emptiness within the same hour — is rare this close to Tbilisi.