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It also has amazing restaurants and bars so pretty much it has everything, including skiing within 30 mins of the city in the winter (the ski season is from November to end of April so 6 months of great skiing)
The first day I joined a 16 hr tour to Kolsay lake, Charyn river and 3 other canyons to see the nature's beauty of the Almaty region and it definitely didn't disappoint! Beautiful places with stunning views.
Charyn canyon or valley of the castles because the scenery looks as if there are castles on the side of the canyon. You do a relaxed 2.5 km walk with cool rock formations along and you end up in the Charyn river.
The closest you get to the Charyn river the color of the views and rocks change. Something to do with the mineral contents of the soil closer to the river
Moon canyon (also called yellow canyon) - the view resembles as if there are yurts as the small mountains look like many yurts being there.
Black canyon or valley of death. Due to the high iron content the rocks look black. And the reason it's called valley of death is that at night the black rocks make it seem to be simply part of the soil and people and animals would keep walking and falling into the canyon and hence valley of the death. It's 7kms long and it's actually the beginning of the Charyn canyon which runs for a couple hundred kms.
Kolsay lake. - beautiful stunning lake in between mountains. In reality there are 3 lakes but only visited the first as it's a 4 hr hike to lake 2 and then another few hours to the 3rd lake. Plus you need to go from 1800 meters above sea level to 2800+ meters above sea level. The views here are simply phenomenal. What a beautiful place.
One can rent paddle boats to go around the lake and it's definitely worth it. As the lake isn't that big one can go around the lake in 30 min or so. Bear in mind that the size of the boats aren't made for a tall person so pedaling isn't as nice when you are tall…but it's a nice time along the beautiful lake with the snow capped mountains as a breathtaking view.
After a long day going to all these places the only drawback is the 5 hours bus ride back to get back to the city. But it's definitely worth it.
Cool things to see in Almaty include:
Panfilov park which is where the Ascension cathedral is at. A beautiful Russian Orthodox church with its typical decorations
Also on the edge of the park is the eternal flame and memorial for the fallen soldier
Green bazaar - a pretty decent size bazaar where one can get anything from fruits, vegetables to clothes, souvenirs. You name it, it can be found there. Including a whole section on the butchery to buy horse meat which is a delicacy here and something part of the diet. It's really tasty and pretty much offered in every restaurant in some form or another.
Kok Tobe - it's a short cable car ride to go to the top of the mountain for some breathtaking views of the city and there's a little fair at the top with games and stuff. Also a tower which is very nicely illuminated at night. I got an amazing sunset from the top.
While I didn't get a chance to go see Big Almaty lake, I decided instead to go to Medeu and Shymbulak.
So Medeu is during the winter the highest open air ice skating rink at over 1800 meters above sea level. It happened that when I went there was a car expo of pimped out cars so I had to go check it out. It's funny how people pimp out any car!
But the highlight is actually Shymbulak. During the winter this is actually a ski resort but in the summer one can ride the cable car to the first station from which you can ride two other cable cars further up. On one of them are actually two different rides and it takes you to the top station at 3200 meters above sea level and here even after the summer there's snow and the views are simply breathtaking. And yes it's a bit chilly even in September.
The other cable car is actually a ski lift to a different part of the mountain and well ..it gets chilly being on the ski lift after a while.
There's even a pretty hard core mountain bike trail all down the mountain so you see a few people bringing their bikes up the ski lift.
This is the type of place that words won't do it justice to be honest. It's just beautiful!
At the bottom of the different cable cars and close to the Medeu ice rink, one can find Auyn which is a neo-kazakh restaurant with the typical dishes with a modern twist. And probably the best food I tried in Kazakhstan.
They also have Kazakh inspired cocktails and some Kazakh wine (the Cabernet franc ain't bad)
As for food the horse meat tartare was phenomenal as well as the Horse meat Beshbarmak (the most typical Kazakh dish which it actually translates as five fingers food as it's meant to be eaten with your hand) which consists of some big wide noodles at the bottom with different cuts of meat on top. These included a mini rib, a sausage, steak and I guess horse bacon.
Simply delicious. To top it off, their honey cake was also very tasty.
Almatyis also know for its nightlife and there are plenty of options in that respect as the famous Barmagalot bar or bla bla bar.
And to top it off a nice sunrise sendoff at the airport
