A leafy Soviet city under snow peaks, a red rock canyon, and alpine lakes with drowned forests standing in the water, Kazakhstan, greener and stranger than you think.
Into Kazakhstan's green former capital, where the Tien Shan rises white at the end of every street. After the flight we keep it easy, a first plate of beshbarmak, a stroll under the apple trees the city is named for, an early night.
The all timber Zenkov Cathedral in Panfilov Park, the heaped fruit of the Green Bazaar, the Soviet mosaics and the view from Kok Tobe hill. Up the cable car to Shymbulak and the Medeu skating rink, high in the mountains above town.
An hour up into the Tien Shan to Big Almaty Lake, an improbable turquoise sheet of glacial water ringed by 4,000 metre peaks, with a cosmic ray observatory above it. The cleanest air and the bluest water within reach of a city this size.
East across the steppe to Charyn Canyon, the 'Valley of Castles', red sandstone towers the river has carved into a miniature Grand Canyon. A walk down to the river, then on to Saty village near the Kolsai lakes for a guesthouse night.
The Kolsai lakes, three alpine jewels stepping up a forested valley, a horse ride or a walk along the first, and the eerie Lake Kaindy, where an earthquake drowned a spruce forest and the bare trunks still stand straight up through clear cold water.
The drive back west to Almaty across the wide grassland, the mountains running alongside. An afternoon to land softly, the Arasan bathhouse, a café on a leafy avenue, the city's surprisingly good coffee and cake.
A day to the UNESCO petroglyphs of Tamgaly, thousands of Bronze Age carvings in a sacred gorge, or up to the Assy plateau, summer pasture for the herders, the felt yurts dotted across the green. The nomad past, still close to the surface.
Yours, the Kasteyev art museum, the Arbat pedestrian street, a final round of the Green Bazaar for dried fruit and horse sausage, or simply the mountains from a rooftop. A last Kazakh feast to close it out.
A slow last morning before your transfer to the airport. Kazakhstan is the world's ninth largest country and one of its least known, you leave feeling you got somewhere ahead of the crowd.
Three ways to do the same route: Comfort, Premium or Luxe. Breakfasts in. Mix tiers city by city if you like, it is your trip.
Priced to your dates, your hotel tier and how the two of you like to travel. Ask, the first answer usually lands within minutes.
Plan this trip on WhatsApp → Send to the group chat
