Céret 2018: 2 August - The 3 Lakes Walk & Eguisheim

We'd wanted to do a last walk up high in the mountains before we started heading west onto the plains. The 3 Lakes walk near Orbey west of Colmar seemed to fit the bill, so I loaded it onto our phones and we set off early again to beat the heat.

We started at Lac Blanc, headed in a big loop around to Lac du Forlet (also known as as Lac des Truites, presumably if you prefer fish) and passed Lac Noir on our return. The track threaded its way through forest, often covering with lumpy granite moraine boulders, with a lovely section along the flat and open crest of the Vosges/Haut Rhin border. The temperature was lovely and cool at about perhaps 25-27, which after weeks of 32 felt mild. At one point we emerged onto the top of some ski runs, with 5 ski-tows converging, and trails heading off in 3 directions through the forest.

Lac Blanc

Lac Blanc, looking towards the Alps

One of the highlights was a section coming down to Lac du Forlet, through a herd of cows tinkling away with varied notes from their neck bells. The track dropped to the lake, where there was a little auberge doing coffee and meals. It felt quite surreal to us Kiwis to be walking out in the wild, but be able to stop and have a coffee, then carry on with the rest of the hike. In this area the ferme auberges are everywhere, and I'm sure you could arrange most walks to make sure an auberge is on your route at lunchtime. You can stay at them too, and I imagine many walkers hike from one to the next, staying overnight.

Across the tops

Looking down on the auberge and Lac du Forlet

The auberge was in a wonderful setting

We always try to choose loop tracks to see as much territory as we can in 3-5 hours. It is made possible by the phenomenal track network all over France, but which seems at its most dense in this region. I can almost always add together a series of trail sections to make a suitable length loop, with a good number of sights to see on the way. This is something that requires an old and relatively dense civilisation with a history of walking, and thus hard to replicate in New Zealand. Today we must have crossed over other trails dozens of times, and had near-parallel ones most of the time. Mostly we have been alone on our walks, but this time there were dozens of others, and the areas at each of the lakes were crowded with day-trippers who'd arrived by car.

Wild raspberries were a nice treat at one point. Having walked some 12 kilometres, we jumped in the car and headed down the road a little to get away from the crowds and have a picnic lunch at a pleasant little roadside picnic area.

This area is endowed with gorgeous villages. We'd already spent time in Ribeauville, and wondered whether others would be much different. The answer is 'yes'. We drove south to Eguisheim and parked up for a look around. It proved to be totally different to Ribeauville. Much tighter and smaller houses, with characteristic round-topped hobbit doors, and close little concentric streets. Not only that, but a number of stork nests up high on the church and other buildings, with the storks making beak-clattering greetings whenever one appeared overhead.