Vézère Valley

Visited March 2024.

Other reviewers were immensely helpful in planning my trip and I shan't repeat their excellent advice, but I felt a 2024 update may be in order as certain things -- most notably the fact that entirely online pre-booking is now available at all the sites! -- seem to have changed very recently.

That's right, no more queueing at 6am required, at least for the sites that were open when I visited in March (the last month of the 'off-season'). For the sites within Les Eyzies that don't have a welcome hut, you must go to the one at Font-de-Gaume to have your ticket checked, but this is the only necessary remnant of the old system from what I can tell.

This does -- however -- seem to be something not many have cottoned onto. I was able to book onto my desired times at the most popular sites just days in advance of my trip. Most other people I met on the trip had apparently queued. I credit finding this out with the fact I was able to visit three inscribed sites and both museums in a daytrip from Bordeaux.

I always challenge myself to visit sites without the use of any private vehicle and without having to overnight if I can avoid it. I was living in Bordeaux at the time and did this as a daytrip. The train journey is long but comfortable and you must change trains at either Périgueux or Le Buisson. I highly recommend the former, not just because it provides good views of the WHS-inscribed Cathédrale Saint-Front, but because a guy in a restaurant in Le Buisson actually laughed at me when I said I was looking to eat something. They're not well set-up for travellers...!

I decided to focus on Les Eyzies, not just for its convenience (as it has a train station, unlike many places in this part of France), but also because it's the place with the greatest concentration of worthwhile sites, which are also reachable on foot from one another.

I began with the first tour of the day at Font-de-Gaume. This must feature on any itinerary in this area as it is the only site with cave paintings you can still enter. It's not located in the valley like all the others within Les Eyzies and thus did not have the paint washed away when the ice melted in the last ice age. The entrance to the cave is a short walk uphill from the visitor centre, which is located on the opposite side of town to the train station. The visit only includes a small part of the large complex, but the guide was excellent. As always in France, I highly recommend the French-language tour if you understand French. The material you get will be different and pitched at a higher educational level than the English tour (having experienced them when I have friends visiting me).

A 20-minute walk away from Font-de-Gaume is the Grotte des Combarelles. I spent a long time trying to determine whether this route was walkable on Google Street View. I know this has been mentioned before on the site. Since taxis in this part of France are about as rare as Lascaux I entry tickets, I didn't have much choice. It's very easily walkable as long as you stick to the riverside side of the road. I did see some animal skulls (!!) lining the route, but I wasn't even the only walker. I highly recommend it actually. The visit here was longer than at Font-de-Gaume, but -- as there are a maximum of 6 each time -- far more interactive and the guide was excellent. They have extracts from proper academic books (not the public-facing tourist books) for you to read in the visitor hut and I think this gave the best insight of just how determinations about these caves were made. There are just carvings remaining here, but some of my favourites were the superposed animals where prehistoric artists made use of even older carvings as part of their compositions.

After lunch at the Hôtel Le Centenaire (which I mention only because their three-course lunch for 20 euros is one of the best and best-priced meals I have ever had anywhere in France and which I cannot recommend enough), I visited both of the museums: the Musée National de la Préhistoire and the Pôle d'Interprétation de la Préhistoire. The former has some impressive stuff, but I found most of its displays quite repetitive. It also doesn't lean in well enough to sites themselves (as opposed to being a general introduction to prehistory), which isn't a negative, but isn't what I was hoping for. The latter comes highly recommended as their programme is local-specific and changed all the time.

My final stop was the Abri du Poisson. This is also walkable (you even get a path all the way!!), this time in the other direction out of town (i.e. past the train station). I was able to collect my ticket in the morning at Font-de-Gaume with very little hassle (contrary to what the ticket you get online actually says). This gives you a sense of a different kind of environment (i.e. not a cave) in which people produced this art and lived. The main attraction here is -- as the name suggests -- the absolutely spectacular carving of the fish. There were only 3 of us on this tour and my guide was excellent.

This was a long daytrip from Bordeaux, but it was indeed a daytrip and more than doable by train and by foot. I think four sites are easily visitable this way given the newly introduced online booking. If I'd had my time over (and visited in the summer), I'd have swapped the museum visits for Cro-Magnon, also conveniently near the train station. Which sites are open in winter and which in summer only seems super random to me, although doubtless there are reasons behind it. With the obvious exception of Font-de-Gaume, it's neither the most popular, most impressive, or least endangered that stay open year-round. Apparently the selection may change in the future.

Certainly one of my favourite WHS in France.

I was back in the Bordeaux area to visit the Cordouan Lighthouse and decided to swing by the Vezere Valley for the third time. The first time was for Lascoux in 2004 and the second time was for Font-de-Gaume in 2009. My initial motivation to go back was to visit the National Museum of Prehistory, as it was closed on the day I visited Font-de-Gaume in 2009.
 
But then, by staying overnight in Les Eyzies, I managed to visit three more components of this august WHS: Abri de Cro-Magnon, Les Combarelles, and La Madeleine. 

Arriving in Les Eyzies by train in the early afternoon, I first visited Abri de Cro-Magnon, which supposedly  opened to the public only in 2014. It is a very easy visit, as it is located right by the train station. Indeed, the prehistoric bones were discovered when they dug the area to clear for the train station in 1868. Although the main thing here is just Abri (shelter) created by the overhanging rocks of a cliff (See Aspasia's photo below), it's got to be very important as it is where Cro-Magnon Man, human ancestor, was first identified. 

Then I walked over to the museum, but more about this later. 

In mid-afternoon, I had a pre-booked, time-allocated, 8-Euro entrance ticket for Abri de Cap Blanc, but after realizing that I had packed too many activities within the 24 hour period of stay in Les Eyzies, I decided to forgo it. Well, there is always the next time... It's hard to believe that even though Abri de Cap Blanc is managed by a French state entity, they don't refund in case of cancelation even a few weeks in advance. 

For Les Combarelles you also need to pre-book your ticket, retrieve the ticket from the office for Font-de-Gaume (See Els' photo on top of this page) and then go further east for 2 km on the same road to Les Combarelles. I could have walked but a local French lady gave me a ride. The English-French guide for Les Combarelles said that Les Combarelles had been similar to Font-de-Gaume, but the pigments that gave color to the paintings unfortunately had come off due to more water entering the Les Combarelles cave than the Font-de-Gaume cave. (But the ticket price was the same as Font-de-Gaume at 11.5 Euros.) So, most of the things you see in this cave are engravings. They are rather difficult to identify without the pigments, but the guide did his best to show them to us. Photography was not allowed in the cave. 
 
The next morning my plan was to visit La Madeleine, but it is about 10 km away from the center of Les Eyzies. I was initially planning to walk both ways, but the owner of the abri where I stayed informed me that the area was hilly and I could rent an electric bicycle. I was at first reluctant because I had never used an electric bicycle or a now-ancient Segway or a now-ubiquitous electric skateboard with a handle, or whatever you call it. But in the end I had no choice but to rent it, as I did not get up early enough to walk to La Madeleine. The bicycles are parked right at the main square of Les Eyzies, meaning they are available 24/7. I had to quickly figure out how to rent it (Creating an account online, putting deposit, receiving a code to unlock the bicycle, and so on) and, once rented, how to operate it. I had thought that in the electric mode it ran like a motorcycle and I didn't have to wheel it, but that was not the case. Electricity only aided my effort to move the bicycle forward (hybrid?). I thought it would help if the panel on the bike showed how many calories I burned. With the ubiquitous device you don't need such an info. But thanks to the electricity, it took me only about 30 min. to get to La Madeleine. 
 
I was told by a staff on site that La Madeleine was named after a chapel for Madeleine/Magdalene that has existed in the middle of the village since 14th century. But La Madeleine today refers to many troglodyte abri in the area (Abri de la Madeleine) or to the whole small village developed around the abri (Le Village de la Madeleine) overlooking the Vezere River. La Madeleine is the type site for the Magdalenian Culture from 17,000 BP to 12,000 BP, during which most of the cave paintings / engravings (Lascoux, Font-de-Gaume, Les Combarelles), reliefs (Abri de Cap Blanc), and sculpted items (La Madeleine) as we know them in the Vezere Valley were created. 

On Saturday, May 20, 2023, when I visited, some sort of Magdalenian demonstration was going on, and the ticket price was twice as much as the listed price on the official website that didn't announce the special price (13 Euros). Who knows how authentic those demos were, but the food they were serving was certainly not Magdalenian or Cro-Magnon and was rather futuristic. But one thing undeniable is the fact that in this village have been discovered many Magdalenian artifacts. 
 
The National Museum of Prehistory houses such artifacts and is a first class museum by any means. The museum structure is built under a rock cliff with abri, onto which you can climb up after seeing the exhibitions. One of the most famous Magdalenian artifacts here is an item known as "Bison from the Madeleine" from 15,000 BP (left photo).  Archaeologists say an existing fragment of a reindeer antler was engraved to depict a bison turning its head and licking its flank . 
 
There is also another new museum-like facility called "Pôle d'interprétation de la Préhistoire" with rather an extensive exhibition space farther east on the same side road where the National Museum is. The entrance to this facility is free.  

After leaving the Vezere Valley I was often thinking about the Bison from the Madeleine because I saw it at the museum and then next morning went over to La Madeleine where it was found. 
 
4 days later on May 24, I took a boat tour of the Gulf of Porto WHS in Corsica. During the tour, we stopped at the village of Girolata for 2 hours for lunch where many cattle were roaming on the beach. I approached a docile cow and managed to pet her. Then, to my absolute amazement, this is what she did suddenly (right photo). I don't believe in act of God or anything, but I can't help thinking what happened was more than just a coincidence! The similarity also comes from the fact that this cow was brownish unlike the usual black and white cows. A brief internet research showed that cattle were known to turn their head to lick their body, which I wasn't aware of. Bison and cattle are in the same family of species. 

Comparing the two photos, one more thing I'd like to say is that, as mentioned above, the fragment of reindeer antler was there first, and the creator most likely saw a real bison turning its head and projected that image on the fragment ... in 15,000 BP. It may have been a similar process to when they used 3D rock surface for animal paintings / engravings (Font-de-Gaume / Les Combarelles) or reliefs (Abri de Cap Blanc). In any case the creator must have been quite imaginative. 

Les Eyzies has definitely been adjusting to the tourists' demand, and now the main street is aligned with one restaurant and souvenir shop after another. A huge change since my last visit in 2009, but I'm so glad that I made this pilgrimage. 

What misadventure? 

I've wanted to visit this area for a long time, so I was thrilled to finally fit it into a trip. We visited three main sites: Font-de-Gaume, Combarelles, and Lascaux (IV) in October 2022.

First, to update some logistics:  No more lining up at dawn to get tickets for Font-de-Gaume or Combarelles. They sell time-reserved tickets online now, and it is essential you get them ahead of time. Even in the off/shoulder season of late October, they do sell out and I didn't always get  my ideal time slot booking about a week ahead. You can also reserve tickets for Lascaux IV, but in late October, we just showed up and were able to join the next (non-guided) group. It would have been about a 45 minute wait for the next English guided tour, but we were fine with the audioguides. We also stopped by Abri de Cap Blanc, and would have been allowed to join the next tour, but we didn't have time to wait, and unfortunately, you can't see anything at all without paying the admission.

We visited Font-de-Gaume first, and it's wonderful to see the painted figures there. There were some scientists studying certain sections while we were there. It was a bit frustrating being told, "Oh there are some good ones at the end there, but we don't allow the public there any more." But overall, our guide was very good at explaining what we were looking at.

At Grotte des Combarelles, there's basically no pigment left, but you see the engravings in the walls of a wider variety of animals, including mammoth, lion, and rhino (in addition to the usual horses and bison) which was really satisfying. There are also some human(like) figures. Combarelles is also much longer -- about 300 meters long, and once you start seeing the figures engraved, hundreds of them go on continuously for a long distance, which was also quite amazing.

Lascaux IV was very impressive.  The number and vibrancy of figures is really incredible. I really enjoyed the whole experience. I initially thought the audio-guide was too brief when walking through the  re-created caverns but then the space at the end lets you sit down and explore more topics in front of more replicas.

For getting around, we had a rental car (starting from Bordeaux) and stayed at a wonderful bed & breakfast in La Roque Gageac, which is about a half-hour drive to Font-de-Gaume.  But it worked out as a great base for exploration of the area.

Just a general comment on the Perigord region:  I was astounded at how much there is to see and do there: caves, both for the pre-historical aspects and just nature, museums, castles, gardens, bike trails. I would have happily spent about 2 weeks in the area, but didn't have that much time.

This is not a review about what you see, but about how to do it without a car. Since I don't drive, I knew from the beginning that I would need to hitchhike. This was August 2020 and although not all the sites were open or they were already fully booked (as was Cap Blanc when I called, several days before going), I assumed that fully booked meant tourists, hence people I should be able to convince to take me, in spite of the mask. I based myself in Bordeaux and the initial idea was easy: take morning train to Les Eyzies via Périgueux, visit the museum + Cro-Magnon, reach Rouffignac and Lascaux (I had booked a few days before a tour in French for Lascaux II at 5 pm), then evening train Sarlat to Bordeaux. 

However, I only managed to get 4 hours of sleep the night before (I was coming from Lyon) and wasted time packing in the morning, so when I checked the timetable board at St Jean, I saw my train had left 3 minutes before. I was so drowsy that I couldn't even panic. Luckily, the next train to Périgueux was coming soon and I used the same ticket. From there, the first stop was at the tourist office, who told me I couldn't make it ('watch me'), then to the cathedral (which is a WHS as parts of Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France) and lastly I crossed Pont Saint-Georges and started hitchhiking. 3 cars later, at around 11 am, I reached Rouffignac Cave, who weren't allowing any pre-bookings, you just had to go in person, get your booking and, if it weren't the first slot of the day, come back. I had called them before reaching, so I knew I still had a chance to get a ticket for after 2 pm and once my booking secured, I went to Les Eyzies with a couple that had just finished the visit. 

The museum was impressive, the Cro-Magnon shelter (photo) not that much - probably I need a visit to Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Then I crossed the Vézère for another hitchhike to Rouffignac (I remember I had to wait for a while for that one, but then I was dropped in front of the cave) and then a family who had done the visit with me brought me to Lascaux as the highway to reach Lot wasn't far from Montignac. 

I was aware Lascaux II did not have all the reproductions, but at the same time I had read that the guides were good and in hindsight, I wasn't disappointed. I can't find proper words for the excitement that followed after the guide switched off the light and said we would see the paintings through the eyes of the teenagers. At the end I asked the guide why photos were not allowed and was told that it was probably because they preferred to sell the books and postcards. 

After another hitchhike, I managed to reach Sarlat station on time for my train, but this meant no time left for the TWHS (the station needs a bit of walking from the centre). 

All in all, the caves were outstanding and the trip turned out well, although if I were to do it now I would probably just make it to the station on time or take the train to Saint-Cyprien, then the hitchhike to Les Eyzies should be shorter. 

The Vézère Valley was my last WHS ‘to do’ in mainland France. In preparation, I found it difficult to get a good overview of the Vézère locations, especially for a visit out of season. So I made a spreadsheet to come to terms with the different access policies. It turns out that 2 out of the 15 locations are permanently closed to visitors, 6 aren’t open during winter months and the others … well, lots of oddities there as well. A general warning: always check the opening hours on the French section of the respective official website, as they may not always update the English version.

I started my visit with a pilgrimage to Lascaux I – the original Lascaux cave. It has been closed off to visitors since 1963, but on Google Streetview, I noticed that a paved road runs along its entrance. I left my car at the entrance to Lascaux II and went on further exploration on foot. The whole area was eerily quiet and there are a lot of No Entry signs, but accessing this road seems to be OK. What you’ll find in the end is only a fence and a gate of course, but it has a UNESCO sign!

I continued with attending the last tour of the day at Lascaux IV, the 2016 replica. The tour is already well-described in earlier reviews; I found it disappointing. Especially the audiovisual experience at the end is awkward. With a 20 EUR entrance fee, I’d say skip Lascaux IV and go for one of the original locations.

The next morning I got up early for a special reason: to get inside the Font de Gaume cave, the only originally painted site that still can be visited. Tickets cannot be booked in advance: you have to secure one of the numbered seats in front of the ticket office before the opening hour of 9.30. In the busy summer months you have to be there by 7 a.m., on a Sunday in February I guessed 8.15 would be fine. It turned out I was the first of the day. Eventually, 12 more visitors showed up. We were all able to join the first scheduled tour at 10.00.

One can enter this cave for 30 minutes only with a guide. There is a narrow passage through the cave and you have to be careful not to scrape along the walls with your clothes: it is all very fragile. The only modification made for modern visitors is the addition of electrical lighting. As in Lascaux, the light-colored calcite walls are decorated with images of animals. We saw (many) bison, mammoths, reindeer and horses. Black and red (brown) are the most used colors here.

At the beginning of the cave, the paintings are unfortunately damaged by graffiti from early visitors. Deeper into the cave system the scenes get more and more beautiful: two reindeer standing head to head, a male deer licking a female and a row of 5 fully colored, clearly distinguishable bison. This cave is surely worth the early rise and waiting outside for an hour in the cold!

Also in the town of Les Eyzies, the National Prehistoric Museum holds finds from the caves and other regional prehistoric sites. One of the most special is an oil lamp found in Lascaux - 17,000 years old and shaped like a large spoon. It used to be filled with animal fat. From La Madeleine, they show an object cut from reindeer antlers: it represents a bison licking itself. The archaeological site of La Madeleine is unfortunately closed in winter. I drove there anyway, hoping to see something from a distance, but it is well closed off. What rests is a view of the Vézère, the river that meanders like a thread through this prehistoric valley.

If you are spending time in the department of Dordogne, it is possible with the right planning to see 3-to-5 locations of this WH site in one day. 

My day in May of 2018 started with a wash. Grotte de Font de Gaume is among the most popular of the caves. You cannot buy tickets in advance, and only 50 people are allowed in during the course of the day. The caves open doors at 9:30am, and you realistically need to be there no later than 8:30 in order to get a ticket for some later time in the day. We arrived around 9:05 and were approximately at #70 in line, and left at 9:30 after hearing from the ticket clerk that our chances for the day were slim. I knew in advance that there was a fair possibility of that happening, but getting up much earlier to spend an hour or more in line for tickets is rarely an acceptable strategy for yours truly; I was hoping that in the shoulder season there may be less competition for tickets, but was proven wrong.

Instead, we went to Abri de Cap Blanc, where there was no line for the opening at 10am, and only a dozen of other visitors joined us in the following hour. This is not a cave, but a preserved rock overhang (abri means "shelter" in French), where the art form is not painting but sculptural relief. The sculptures were magnificent beyond any of my expectations. The small onsite museum has a few artifacts, exhibits, and replicas related to the primeval residents of the valley. Access to the actual sculptures is allowed only in small groups with a guide. The guided tour is in French only, but an English-language information sheet is available.

We next went to Grotte de Rouffignac, where it is possible to just walk in and get on the next tour of the cave. The electric tourist train goes almost two kilometers deep inside the cave, taking you to a series of monochrome drawings and engravings of various animals, dating from around 13,000 years ago. Interestingly, the guide stresses the fact that the cave was never really inhabited by the humans, and there is no good answer as to why people traveled so deep inside the dark passages to leave their artistic mark on the walls and the ceiling. The tour is in French only, but when enough English speakers are present the guide will occasionally switch to English. Companion electronic guides, with texts and pictures in various languages, can be rented at the ticket office for the duration of the tour.

Our final stop was Lascaux, the headline site of this World Heritage series, where a huge modern interpretive center (named "Lascaux IV") was built a few years ago to cater to the masses. Everyone who tours Vézère prehistoric sites comes to Lascaux; buying tickets online in advance is highly recommended, although I expect that in low season you can probably walk in without an advance purchase. English-speaking tours are scheduled only a couple of times a day, while French-speaking leave throughout the day every few minutes or so; I did not find the guide's commentary widely illuminating, but she did point out a few more obscure features of the paintings, so planning for the English tour may make sense for those who do not speak French.

There are no real caves at Lascaux IV (the original cave is located some distance away and has been closed to visitors for decades; a secondary cave - Lascaux II - can be visited with a French guided tour on very limited schedule). Your visit to the interpretive center will take you to the replica of the caves, and then your guide will deposit you at "the Studio", where you can explore the paintings and the history through many interactive exhibits. There are also a series of short movies related to the discovery of the caves and the interpretation of its art, as well as an exhibition of modern art inspired by the primeval paintings.

The reproductions of the Lascaux paintings - make no mistake, you are only seeing reproductions here - are polychrome, and almost too vivid to bring suspicion of not being authentic. But all available information suggests that the original paintings indeed remained in similar brilliant shape for millennia until their discovery in mid-20th century.

I used to think that primeval art was not exactly my cup of tea, but I am very much impressed with what I saw at the Vézère sites.

Majority of the sites are located no further than 30 minutes by car from either Sarlat or Perigueux. They are not managed by a single outfit and they all have different access policies, so advance research is paramount.

When I heard that France would have opened the new Lascaux International Center known as Lascaux IV, I immediately wanted to visit this new museum which seemed to be a great place to see. The tickets are easy to secure by online booking from the Lascaux’s website (which could be improved a lot) even if not all guided tours are on display, but since my visit happened last week (September), there were plenty of free slot of tour to choose. They cost 16€, a remarkable price I should say. The village of Montignac is easy to reach only by car though.

As other people said, the museum complex building is modern and well integrated with the nearby landscape. Professional guides accompany groups of max 32 persons (commencing every six minutes) from the site’s welcome desk to the exit of the reproduction of the cave. After being guided to the roof in the open air to explain the environment of Vezere River Valley, listening to a dog barking sound and voice of chasing boys to replicate the time when they discovered Lascaux in a small open corridor next to the forest, seeing a presentation of what this area looked like in ancient time, we finally entered a kind of replica of Lascaux Cave. Inside the replica, the atmosphere is like a real cave. It is cool and dark. They say this space is dedicated to “contemplation”, so, even if you are staring at replicas you are not allowed to take any picture even without flash, which I found exaggerated for our “image society”! After that, you go by yourself to the multimedia part of the museum, the Lascaux Studio where eight large walls of the cave are reproduced separately, with a kind of IPad.

To tell the truth, I expected much more, both from the cave replica and the museum itself. The iPad is not immediately comprehensible and many explanations are poor. If you had not been at Lascaux II, you don’t realize what has been added in this new museum, no plan of each site (I mean, the real Lascaux, Lascaux II and IV) is on display to better undestand where you are nor a complete video of the real Lascaux is projected. There’s a huge waste of space in a three-room cinema with beautiful images though. When I came back home I found out on their website there was a 3D cinema but I didn’t see it once onsite!! If it really was on offer, it means it was not signalled properly, since I stayed there 3 hours and visited every corner, nor the guide suggested us to go and see it. So, if you go, try to not miss it like me. I liked a VR video at the very end of the visit but it was very short and provided only a ride in the first big cave. Finally, don’t buy gourmet souvenir at Lascaux International Center because they cost the double you can find outside.

If you really want to see a spectacular real cave with beautiful and interesting prehistoric remains, go to Pech Merle cave in the Lot Valley. It’s not a Unesco site, but it’s incredible. The guided tour (I think only in French) lasts 1 hour, which is a little bit too short but ok; no photos are allowed and here you really will regret this rule since the cave is magnificient not only for it’s paintings but also for it’s huge and special stalagmites and stalactites formations.

I posted my video of the Lascaux Studio on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YyETWvDVk44

When I heard the news that France has opened the new Lascaux International Center or commonly known as Lascaux IV, I immediately asked my friends to visit this new museum as part of our trip to Andorra which seemed to be a great place to see. The tickets were very easy to secure by online booking from the Lascaux’s website and maybe our visit happened in March, there were plenty of free slot of tour to choose. We arrived the village of Montignac 50 minutes before our tour started, but because of many detours from road construction in the center of village and our GPS did not know this new site, we got lost and arrived at museum carpark 10 minutes before the tour started.

The stunning museum complex building is very modern but well integrated with overall nearby landscape. We met our guide who is excellent in French accent English. Our tour group was only 10 persons. The museum also provides an excellent hi-tech audio guide with personal ipad liked machine. First of all, our guide took us to the roof of the complex to explain the environment of Vezere River Valley, then we went to see a presentation of what this area was looked like in ancient time in each season especially the common wild animal and the story of how Lascaux has been rediscovered by local teens. Our guide took us to the small open corridor next to the forest while played the record of dog barking sound and voice of chasing boys to replicate the time when they discovered Lascaux. Then came the highlight of the tour, the replica of Lascaux Cave. The replica is stunning for its impressive works of multi-colored of art, the images of the rows of countless animal by ancient humans in the first and second rooms are really beautiful, while it was unbelievable that all are just a replica with faithful works to copy everything from the real cave. Then we went to see the new section that was not at the Lascaux II, so this section was quite interesting for people who already been to Lascaux II. While there are still a lot of paintings in this new section, most of them are lack of color, only fainted lines are visible, so without guide, this section really looked plain. After that the guide took us to another hall which display partial sections of paintings which we could see as long as we want for better understanding via the audio guide and multimedia. Then we went inside cinema hall which displayed history of Lascaux interpretation and study and ended the tour with nice meal at café museum.

Lascaux International Center is a very nice place to visit, the first and second hall of the replica are unbelievable and very beautiful. The display which tries to make a better understanding on cave study and history is really good and highly recommended, truly one of the best World Heritage Site of France. What is our opinion on Lascaux IV, I think what our guide said before we entered a replica cave is the very good summary “Human love beauty and in searching of beauty is a thing of human being. Art of Lascaux is beautiful, so it is natural that people around the world want to come here to visit Lascaux”.

This is a site I had long wanted to visit, but it is rather difficult without your own transport. The solution was a well-organized day trip run by a tour company (Ophorus). Starting from the pretty medieval town of Sarlat, we first visited the cave of Rouffignac, which is especially famous for its fantastic paintings of mammoths. The visit is by means of an electric railway which stops at several points for an explanation of the paintings. It was already a tourist attraction in the 19th century, so it is remarkable that one can still visit the original cave, rather than a replica. The day continued with a guided visit of the excellent National Prehistory Museum in Les Eyzies de Tayac, which supposedly contains the largest collection of prehistoric artifacts in the world. In the afternoon, we joined a guided tour of the Lascaux II cave, the replica of the most famous cave in the world. The original was closed to visitors in 1963, and the replica opened in 1983, just about 200 metres above the original (the entrance to the original is of course closed off, but the UNESCO sign can be seen at the fence). Lascaux II recreates the most important parts of the original cave in immaculate detail and is really quite fascinating, although I have to say that I was even more impressed by the original cave in Rouffignac.

I visited this great WHS in March 2014. I drove to the Vézère Valley early in the morning. There are prehistoric sites scattered all over the valley but most are either not open to the general public or else it is only possible to visit with a tour guide available only 2-4 times a day (especially in the low season, i.e. NOT June to August). After a lot of research over the internet, I decided to head first to Les-Eyzies-de-Tyack to visit the National Museum of Prehistory. This gave me a general overview and good insights on what to look out for and why these sites are so unique and important. Afterwards, I proceeded to Roc de Cazelle which turned out to be nothing more than caves with artificial scenes attempting to depict how prehistoric everyday life must have been in these caves. All in all it's not worth the effort and time to get there unless you travel with children. Next I visited Font-de-Gaume Decorated Cave which I had prebooked directly by email to fontdegaume@monuments-nationaux.fr. There is quite a hike to visit these caves which are high in the cliffs so my trekking shoes came in handy. The guided visit was 1 hour long. This cave contains around 180 paintings of animals, mainly bison and reindeer with different shades of black, red, brown and yellow. Since the cave has never been completely closed, the quality of the drawings is fading, even though only 200 visitors per day are allowed. After my visit, I asked the guide where I could visit to view some prehistoric etchings which are also mentioned in this inscription. The guide suggested a quick visit to both Les Combarelles Caves to view the prehistoric etchings of felines, stags and Rouffignac Cave which is mostly famous for the outline of a mammoth and which is definitely the site to visit if you only have time for only of these two. That was quite a good morning starter, so I headed towards quaint Montignac where I stopped for lunch. In the afternoon I drove to the entrance of the original Lascaux Cave which is now closed to the general public but there I found a UNESCO plaque depicting its inscription. It is only 200 metres uphill from the visitor centre of Lascaux II. Lascaux Cave contains some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art estimated to be 17,300 years old. Discovered in 1940, the cave complex was opened to the public in 1948, but by 1955 the carbon dioxide exhaled by 1200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings and the cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the prehistoric art and restore it to its original state. Yet this turned this incredible site into a monitored and closed laboratory, with experts involved to fight against the fungi, black mold, green mold and preserve the pigments. Lascaux II, a replica of two of the cave halls (the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery) was opened in 1983, 200 meters from the original. It's truly a work of art and a replica not only of the prehistoric paintings but also the cave structure, lighting, climate, etc. The main difference is that the replica paintings are on a different surface when compared to the original and therefore should not be attacked by fungi or mold. The guided visit was only available in French since I went in the low season but the guide spoke slowly and described every single outline and drawing using a torch to indicate the painting she was describing. The painted gallery is really mind-boggling and is best viewed sitting or crouching down in the middle of the replica cave. That way I could really appreciate the great detail and point of view our prehistoric ancestors were capable of rendering. Although photography (even without flash) and filming is not allowed in all the sites I visited in the Vézère Valley, I still took my camera with me to try my luck in the main plate of my visit near Montignac, which definitely deserves to be inscribed for its OUV. Since I was the last one to try to exit from the replica cave and had to wait with the guide for a couple of minutes for the heavy rain to stop before exiting the cave, and after answering all my questions in detail, my guide asked me where I came from. I replied that I'm from Malta and after hinting at where that is on the globe, I tried my luck and asked her if it was possible to take a quick photo (without flash) of the cave to treasure when I return to my distant homeland. I was surprised that it worked and before she could think twice, I took some photos in quick succession in 2-3 seconds. I wasn't expecting much out of my attempt, but I was pleasantly surprised when I checked out my photos on my computer and I must say I'm more than happy :) The overall experience was very rewarding although quite expensive and to me it's one of the best WHS in France.

To visit this site I travelled by train to Les Eyzies de Tyack where I visited an informative Pre-history museum. But earlier in the day I had located the Font de Gaume, a series of caves high on a cliff. I managed to get on the first tour of the day when during an hour long tour the guide showed us spectacular paintings of many different animals, but mostly bison and reindeer.

I had wanted to reach the Lascaux caves, but there is an absence of transport in that part of the valley.

In our trip to France we have visited four prehistoric sites but I was very disappointed by the fact that most of them were accessible only on booking or were closed. The valley, long 40 km and large 30 km, contain 147 sites and 25 decorated caves (15 are WHS). First we have been to the shelter of Cap Blanc, located in the lateral Beune valley, near Marquay. There are high-relieves of two bisons, horses and reindeer in a limestone cliff, also longer than 2 m, made by reindeer hunters more than 15000 years ago, and a human burial place. The cave of Rouffignac (or Cro-de-Granville), that was already known and described in the 16th century, is situated on a lateral valley along a tributary of the Vézère and has over 8 km of galleries. There were discovered in 1956 engravings and black-outlined paintings, especially in the Breuil gallery: 160 mammoths, 11 bisons, 11 goats, 9 horses, 7 rhinoceros, 1 bear and many other pictures. We have also seen, near Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac the deposit of Laugerie Basse, in a place called 'Les Marseilles', where were found many implements from the reindeer age and a cross-section shows stratified tiers of excavated human remains, and the Grand Roc, a cave with 40 km of passages leading to small chambers that contain stalactites and stalagmites.

The cave of Rouffignac and the shelter of Cap Blanc are two of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, because of the beauty and antiquity of the prehistoric paintings and sculptures, that I have seen here for the first and only time. But I was quite disappointed by the shelter of Laugerie Basse and the cave Grand Roc, that are more natural that cultural places. I didn't like also the fact that many of the other prehistoric places are visitable only on booking of guided tours and that if you go at La Magdaleine you can see only the medieval troglodytic village and not the nearby famous prehistoric site, that I wanted to see. The sites are absolutely worth to be visited because they are the most beautiful prehistoric places in the world and justify the inscription, also because there aren't many prehistoric sites inscribed on the WHL, even if some prehistoric places of the valley could be excuded from the WHL and others included.

Photo: Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac - Shelter of Laugerie Basse