Turtle Lake and Vake Park

Turtle Lake belongs to the locals. It rarely tops a visitor's list, and that is precisely why it delivers something the Old Town cannot: ordinary, unperformed Tbilisi. The small lake sits at 686 metres on a pine-covered ridge above Vake.

Vake Park below was laid out in 1946 and is a textbook Soviet park — broad alleys, a fountain, a cascade of steps. From its upper end a cable car climbs to the lake in about five minutes, with the whole district dropping away beneath you.

What people do at Turtle Lake:

• Walk the flat lakeside loop, roughly a kilometre around
• Rent a pedalo or rowing boat in the warm months
• Sit in the terraced cafés looking out over the water towards the ridge
• Walk down to the Open Air Museum of Ethnography, about twenty minutes on a woodland path
• In winter, simply walk: the lake often freezes at the edges and the pine forest goes quiet

Because the ridge is one of the coolest spots in Tbilisi, half the city comes up here during the July and August heat. Mid-week is when you get the place closer to how it feels the rest of the year, and the light on the water in late afternoon is worth the trip on its own.