Tuesday Lascaux II

We had a quiet morning - after I went down the hill to get some fresh croissants (& use my rudimentary French - "Bonjour Madame, quatre croissants s'il vous plait").  I couldn't order many of the other things in the shop as I either don't know their names or how to pronounce them - but why bother - the croissants were beautiful.  We then set out to see Lascaux II - a cave with what has been called the Sistine Chapel of pre-historic art.

Thank goodness for guide books.  The book said that for much of the year you need to stop in the town of Montignac (2 Kms from Lascaux) and buy your tickets from the tourism office, however for some of the year you can buy them at the site.  It appears that the rationale is that at the height of the tourist season it makes more sense to sell them in town to avoid both the crush and the disappointment if you can't get in (as they "only" sell 2,000 tickets a day [@Eu9,50 ea = Eu19 500 a day - not bad]).  We found and went into the tourism office to be told that tickets were now being sold up at the cave - fair enough.  We later found out that the changeover date for this was 1 October & we'd arrived on the 2nd.  

So we're officially outside the peak tourist season.  And the weather feels it a bit - coolish but very pleasant for walking & being outdoors. Thankfully no rain here, but we're keeping an eye on Paris & they've had quite a bit.

In typical French style Lascaux does the 2 hour lunchtime close & as we'd arrived at noon we had a bit of time to kill before we could get into the 2pm tour.  No worries - buy a couple of filled baguettes & sit up on the hill in the dappled sunlight & enjoy some downtime.   

Anyway Lascaux II is a must see if you're within a few hundred kms of it. You can see pics here.  (It is called "II" because it is a 100% faithful reproduction of 2 of the major chambers in another cave.  This reproduction took 13 years to construct and decorate.  I know seeing a reproduction seems like a cop out - but it is essential to preserve the original cave & it is so magnificent that you forget that it isn't the real thing.) 

The English language guide was great & we came out really well informed & in awe of some of the information we heard & art that we saw.

We then decided to find another nearby cave full of cave paintings of mammoths, ibex hairy rhinos etc, but the instructions were vague & by the time we got nearby it was too late to get in.  So we set the GPS for home - taking the backroads & got into some really interesting country lanes, very small villages & then finally home.  The drive gave us a further feel of the backblocks of this part of France. 

Another lovely relatively low key day - just what is required for us at present.