We walked across the cobblestone street to grab caffeine and fresh sqooze orange juice at the tabac/bar.
Today we are going to see the 15 to 20,000 year old cave paintings in two of the many caves in this region.
We took the little, one lane back roads out of Beynac, along one lane roads winding up through the woods until we topped out high in the hills among farmland. We cruised past isolated farms and small groups of houses, through little villages too small for a post office or even a bar.
Topping out on one ridge, we slid along through the shade-sun-shade of trees and fields until we came to a little patisserie on a hilltop. Inside we found the rest of breakfast, and so we sat outside in the sun eating a raisin roll and lemon tart with view.
There are many many caves in this region, with scratched rock art, engraved and pecked rocks, black monochrome paintings and polychromatic ones. It is hard to choose where to go, and what to see.
We read through some information and brochures, and chose two caves. It turns out that for us this was a good strategy. Gail finds it hard to grasp the whole idea of stuff that is 20,000 years old, and she is not a huge history fan. On the other hand, though I really love history and art, I get the concept pretty quick, and I don’t want to be continually just rushing around.
Besides, we both like a little down time to sit at a cafe and read, or watch people go by. Time to explore another little village or town we come across.
So for us, choosing two was ideal.
But we had to make a careful choice.
So first we headed to Lascaux 2 cave.
This seemed a logical choice, as it is arguably the most famous, and one of the oldest and best preserved caves. We figured the tour would give us a good overview and introduction to the cave art.
You have to buy your tickets in the town of Montignac, about 2KM from the cave. There are no reservations, and in the summer the lines can be long; the wait considerable.
We were there first thing (9:30) on a Sunday morning, and it is not quite high season yet, so we had no line. I plunked down €10,50 for each ticket, and we drove over to the cave.
Lascaux II is a reproduction of the original cave, which is closed to all but a few scientists. It turns out that having so many people in the cave was destroying the cave art. So they made a reproduction cave, accurate to a few centimeters, and used the original methods to reproduce the animal paintings.
The tour is about 45 minutes long. You are not allowed to take any photos. I lifted two from the internet to try to illustrate what we saw.
I was really surprised at how the images were overlapped on each other. I thought they would be like individual pictures: a group of bulls here, a group of deer there. Instead, it was like they painted one over the other, kind of superimposing several scenes.
It is amazing how it looks.
Though the cave is a reproduction, it is cold like a cave, and you really feel “cave” like.
The guide did a great job explaining everything, and allowing time to just stare at it.
The colors were pretty vivid, the drawings clear. I was surprised how large some of the animals are.
The second cave we visited was Grotte de Font-de-Gaume.
This cave is very hard to get into, because it is the only polychromatic cave that is original, that is still open to the public. All others have been sealed off, or reproduced like Lascaux. Only 12 people at a time are allowed in the cave, for only 40 minutes. Less than 200 people a day can visit it, thus tickets are hard to get.
I reserved my on the internet months ago, at this website.
We had to be there at a set time. This is a small operation, and the small group size was really nice. The guide was funny, and she made a point that the people were a lot more sophisticated than we give them credit for. In some places, they used the natural outlines of the rock to complete their paintings.
These paintings are also outlined by lines, or scratches etched into the rock. The paintings here do not overlap, and there are many bison and reindeer, with a few horses thrown in.
What surprised me the most is how faded the rock art is. At Lascaux, it is much more colorful and vivid. In Font-de-Gaume, if the guide did not point out the paintings, you would walk right past many, even though you are deliberately looking for them.
It makes me wonder if the originals in Lascaux are as vivid as the reproductions.
Gail liked Font-de-Gaume better.
I thought they were two good choices, of the twenty or more caves available to visit.