Day 422: Lascaux Caves

Super long day today. Left home around 10am, heading east again into the countryside towards one of France's most famous sites - Lascaux. It's part of a larger series of decorated caves and prehistoric sites in the area, but Lascaux's cave paintings are by far the most famous.

Obviously you can't go into the actual cave any more, as it was closed off in the 1960s when they realised how damaging tourism was to the paintings. A replica cave was built right next door, and now just down the hill is another replica, much larger and more modern, with a high-tech discovery centre as well.

Unfortunately for us, the next English tour wasn't until 2:30pm so we had basically two hours to kill. We ate our baguettes in the car, filmed the outside of the centre a bit, and drove a few minutes up the road to where the original cave entrance is/was. It's pretty hidden behind a few and some bushes, but you can still just espy it through the trees.

Finally it was our turn and I'm happy to report that the tour was really good. Not quite as good as the one at Pont d'Arc, as this was a larger group and you could easily notice the other groups in front and behind, so it sort of felt like a bit of a procession. Plus you can't take photos inside, but when I saw how crowded it was I realised it was basically to keep the groups moving.

A good experience all up. From there we went to the discovery centre, where they have replicas of the replicas and you can photograph those to your heart's content, so we did! Lots of interesting information on display in multiple languages, but it was heavily populated with schoolkids so we beat a hasty retreat. There was also a movie presentation about how findings have developed our understanding of prehistoric humans, followed by a 3D movie about the paintings themselves which was again quite interesting - though I find 3D things quite gimmicky.

Last stop was the VR simulation, where you could put on some VR goggles and walk around inside the cave. That was really cool, though I felt very sick after a few minutes - VR is definitely not for me!

Finally by 5pm it was home time; a two hour drive back to Bordeaux so we didn't get back until nearly 7pm - pretty late by our standards. And poor Schnitzel had spent most of the day in the car!Read more