The Largest High-Elevation Lake In Europe Is A French National Park Beauty With Mountain Trails And Clear Waters

Here's a travel fact that'll wow: To find the largest natural high-altitude lake in Europe, you'll need to travel a lung-busting 7,300 feet up into the Alps in southern France. That's where the glistening waters of Lake Allos spread out over a whopping 54 hectares (around 133 acres), all in one seriously eye-watering setting to boot. The whole thing is perched on the western fringes of the wild and rugged Mercantour National Park, you see, under the gaze of jagged mountain summits, hemmed in by dancing wildflower meadows, and fringed by stands of larch forests that change colors with the seasons.

The good news is that Lake Allos isn't quite the expedition its altitude might imply — a round-trip hike of one to two hours with a relatively friendly 790-foot elevation gain can whisk you there from the nearest parking. What's more, those who do make the journey will be greeted by a charming French mountain refuge (only open in the summer months), which offers lakeside dining terraces, dorm beds for those on a longer adventure, and a menu of hearty home-cooked highland food.

Hiking boots will be needed to get up to Lake Allos, and the lake is generally out of bounds to all but the most experienced mountaineers in the winter months. The closest parking lot is at Laus, which is around 20 minutes' driving outside of the town of Allos itself. To get there, you're looking at a drive of a little over two hours from Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE) — the busiest airport in the country after the big hub of Paris — located just outside the Riviera resort city of Nice.

There'll be a few things that hit you when you finally emerge around that bend in the hiking path and gaze upon Lake Allos for the first time. For one, you'll see that its crown as the largest high-up lake on the continent is well earned. It's one hefty body of water, measuring over 2,000 feet across and over 3,000 feet long. Plus, the jagged summits of the Alps provide a spectacular backdrop, and the twisted rock of Mont Pelat (the tallest in this valley) is just 2,700 feet higher than the lake's surface.

Talking of being uber-clear, that is indeed the case with Allos. This lake is yet another example of a low-oxygen-content water that's fed almost solely by meltwater. The upshot? The H2O you get here is likely to be as crisp and crystalline as a freshly polished pane of glass, and you'll sometimes see perfectly reflected landscapes gleaming back at you from the water's surface.

Then there are the views, made all the better by the fact that Allos, just like the fairytale charm of Tende, lies in the midst of the Mercantour National Park, surrounded by quintessential mountain scenery. Up above, rugged, rock-ribbed glacial peaks dominate the skyline, while larch stands and meadows flow below. What's more, the local residents here include iconic creatures of the French Alps, such as ibex and hardy chamois, so keep those eyes peeled.

Anyone who's pulled on the boots in any national park in the French Alps, whether that's the unique land of waterfalls and lakes that is the Vanoise National Park or the largely under-the-radar Mercantour National Park that surrounds Lake Allos itself, will know that hiking often takes center stage in these wild regions. Well, there's certainly plenty on the menu in this corner of the country, with both meditative loops of the lake waters and hardcore mountain ascents in the offing.

You'll actually need to complete a trail to even reach Lake Allos in the first place. According to the French adventure-travel portal Ultimate France, the most popular way up is via an easy-rated track that skirts the side of a babbling stream, clambers up a series of steps carved into the rocks, and crosses open valleys filled with marshes and forests.

Then there's what's on offer when you finally arrive at Allos. One 6.8-mile trail branches off to loop around several other glacier lakes in the highlands to the northwest of Lake Allos itself. Another, more challenging adventure, beckons on the slopes of aforementioned Mont Pelat. The route to that one zigzags up the peak over 8.3 miles (according to AllTrails), crossing knife-edge ridges before revealing sweeping views of the surrounding ranges, which can extend as far north as Mont Blanc on a clear day.