Lac de Guéry

Our guests took the early train back to Paris for a few more days of sightseeing, and after a lazy morning in the apartment we felt we had to take advantage of Roberts’s day off and maybe a hike was just the thing - we hadn’t had enough in the past three days.

We had both agreed while Hiking in the Mont-Dore region that Lac de Guéry was a spot we would return to. Monday turned out to be the day. Lauris fell asleep just before arriving so we all took a nap in the car before setting out on one of the marked trails. The trail we chose took us past the lake up to a waterfall before cutting through a meadow. We had a small snack there, lounging in the sun with a view of the Chaîne des Puys to the east. All the hikers passing us carried bouquets of daffodils and soon after passing through a pine forest and emerging in another meadow, I had a bouquet of my own.

The drive out to the lake was about one hour, and we weren’t ready to return home just yet, so we decided to check out nearby Lac Servière. Where Lac de Guéry was a valley that was closed off by a basalt flow, Servière is a former crater, and from our perspective on one end it looked like it might be the end of the world, as behind it was a small sliver of ground and then only sky. We circled the lake before our accumulated fatigue accompanied us on our drive home.