National Park around a hidden lake
Twenty km north of Şavşat, a petite karagöl (black lake) is the focal point of the Şavşat Meşeli Karagöl National Park. With your own car you can easily get here, visiting a couple of other sites on the way.
Leaving Şavşat on the road to Artvin you drive downhill until you come to a sign on the right for Veliköy with Şavşat Kalesi (Şavşat Castle) perched on a rock beside it. Keep driving until you reach the village of Ciritdüzü, then turn left to Veliköy. Signs point through the village to the lake – in summer you may have to pay an entrance fee to drive up to it. (A newer road shaves six km off the journey but misses the castle.)
The lake is absolutely perfect, ornamental rather than elemental like much bigger Çıldır Gölü, and surrounded by thick fir forest purportedly full of bears and deer; you’re more likely to see wagtails, woodpeckers, jays and ravens though. The noise made by the frogs is astonishing.
Sleeping
Time was when the lake was home to one of Turkey’s remotest and most basic pensions. Now it has moved upmarket with a proper hotel.
Şavsat Karagöl Otel and Restorant. Tel: 0466-531 2029
Transport info
There is one dolmuş a day from Şavşat to Veliköy and on to the pension. It leaves mid-afternoon and returns very early in the morning (too early for breakfast) but times are often adversely affected by traffic problems so you might want to ask for the driver’s phone number to keep in touch.
Read about snow wrestling at nearby Veliköy: SUMOS IN THE SNOW
