Thanks for the recommendations, Aduchamp! I was quite impressed by the sophistication of the artists when we visited Font de Game in 2006. By the way they used the contours of the cave walls to emphasize the shape of the animals, for example.

My local library does indeed have a copy of The Nature of Paleolithic Art but, alas, only for research. I will go and see it after we return from France.

Nothing to offer but wishing you another wonderful trip
as it's almost June.

Thanks, Mimi! I'll think of you when we're in Paris!

Note also that if you do want to reserve at Font de Gaume you should do it by email to [email protected]

When I tried to call for moolyn, I got a recording that basically gives opening times, and email address. They don't see interested in phone reservations any more, and of course email is easier. At least the recording is better than their old one which was done just as a supertanker of some such drove past their front door, thereby making it almost impossible to understand,

The email address given above by Carlux and me is also the one used to book tickets for Les Combarelles and sadly they are sold out until the end of the summer as well.

It appears from the instant response that tickets for the day of at Les Combarelles can possibly be obtained by lining up at the ticket office at Font de Gaume as well. My francais is rusty so I can't swear this is what is stated but try the email address if you want to see the message for yourself.

Thanks for the information about Les Combarelles. We are returning to the Dordogne the last week in June. We might try to get tickets by queuing. We visited Font de Gaume during our March trip and if we had known would have gotten tickets to Les Combarelles then. Ah well, I guess we will return.

We arrived at the Font de Gaume box office at 9:00 this morning, a little later than planned. There were about 24 people in line in front of us, possibly more waiting in their cars. To put this into perspective, this was an overcast Monday, before the main tourist season. I would suggest arriving earlier from now on to be sure to get tickets.

We had been told that 45 tickets were reserved for sale on the day of but the man from LA in front of us had heard 60. He had tried to book his tickets months in advance so I no longer felt quilty that I had waited too long to try to book ours. In any case, his family of four and my husband and I were successful and got tickets for English tours, his at 2:45 and ours at 11:30. I also scored two tickets for Les Combarelles at 2:15 but no English tours were offered there.

We expected only six people in our tour group but there were a group of bicyclers who asked if we would come back in the afternoon so the whole group could tour at the same time but we already had plans for the afternoon so stood firm. The guide stood firm too about not allowing more than twelve at a time. In the end, there were two noshows so all the bikers who wanted to see the cave did.

It was a great experience seeing both caves in one day. My husband actually found Les Combarelles more interesting although the thought of seeing the best preserved prehistoric paintings, faded as the were, quite overwhelmed me at Font de Gaume. In both caves I was impressed by the sophistication of the artists, using foreshadowing and representation and incorporating the contours of the cave into their artwork.

A bonus at Les Combarelles is that you are welcome to take photos of sketches of all of the etchings in the office. Also, since everyone in our group spoke English, our lovely young guide offered to give the tour in English! We left the cave in a downpour but our spirits were not dampened!

Here is some interesting new theories regrding cave drawings:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/sc...agewanted=2&hp

Thanks, Aud, that IS interesting. By coincidence I was wondering to myself just this morning whether any of the drawings and paintings might have been made by Neandrathals.

We have visited two more caves and my husband has decided that's enough. Our four caves provided a wide range of variations so ended up being a good cross section.

Padirac was very impessive and also very wet. Nobody warned us about this! Fortunately we were wearing jackets with hoods but even so were wet right through by the end. Our tour guide told us that it was especially wet because there has been so much rain recently. This guide placed the English speakers at the front of the group and gave us a quick version of his French spiel each time we stopped Our boat guide spoke no English but offered us a printed brochure in English for his part of the tour.

Maxange is much drier and, like Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles, is on a much smaller scale than Padirac yet it has the largest collection of excentric concretions found anywhere. We enjoyed it and it was also a treat to be in a group of just six people. Even though the tour was officially in French, we were given a large plasticized page covering the main points at each stop and were also encouraged to ask questions, which we all did.

All of the caves cost seven and a half euros per person except Padirac which cost nine euros, eighty.

rosemaryoz, we has a lovely lunch at Restaurant de l'Abbaye in Cadouin today, a very popular spot. We enjoyed the market in Buison very much and would have happily spent longer there had we know we would have to wait half an hour for a tour at Maxange.

We also visited Belves. English tours of the habitations are offered at 12:00, 3:45 and 6:00 but only if there are at least four people. It was very hot and nobody else had turned up for the 3:45 tour by the time we finished a walking tour of the medieval part of town so we missed out. Next time...

We were watching a video on the beautiful Friesian horses. They go back many. many years and info on them said there were drawings of them in caves in southern France & Spain. Does anyone know which caves in France would picture them?

Glad you enjoyed Maxange - we went a few years ago, and it's really quite different from the others. Also interesting to see a cave that was found only a few years ago, (2000)Not many people seem to go to this one

hi moolyn - glad you enjoyed two of my fave places today - i have lovely memories of going there with our kids about 10 years ago or so.

i certainly don't remember Padirac being wet - we had vey good weather I recall though it was sometime in May I think.

i know what you mean about 4 being enough - there are some very nice gardens in the area if it stops raining!

Perhaps not such a big thing to other people, but we were just at a degustation/lunch across the river at La Gabarre, an excellent restaurant in St Julien de Lampon, and met someone who grew up near the Lascaux cave, knew the 4 boys (and their dog) who found it, and actually visited the caves 12 DAYS after it was found. He says his mother was from Les Eyzies, where they found the cro-magnon bones, and his father from Montignac, where there are lots of Neanderthal sites, and so he figures he links the two lines.

moolyn---we've been following this thread closely.

Thanks for the website. We were able to get a reservation at Font de Gaume in Sept. We would like to reserve one more site. Les Combarelles is already sold out for Sept.

For variety, anyone have any suggestions for something a bit different from Font de Gaume? We've been reading a lot of reviews and trip reports and can't seem to choose, it all sounds so wonderful. We were thinking Padriac (along with visiting Rocamadour on one day) or Proumeyssac(along with?)

After reserving 2 sites, we'll leave the other caves up for grabs. We have a week in the area and we like to just drive around the small towns & discover along the way.

The gardens are of great interest to us. Marqueyssac and Eyrignac are definitely on our list, so maybe we can combine a cave in one of those specific areas along with a garden.

After reading so many tips on the area, maybe 1 week isn't enough!

TPAYT - definitely Padirac - it's simply unique, IMHO. and Rocamadour is very interesting, although quite touristy, obviously. I think we did them on the same day but it's a long time ago.

'After reading so many tips on the area, maybe 1 week isn't enough!'

One week is never enough here!

TPAYT, Les Combarelles has lots of drawings of horses so perhaps it's the one you heard of. You might be able to pick up tickets for it when you visit Font de Gaume, worth a try.

This website shows drawings of some of the etchings to give you an idea: http://donsmaps.com/combarelles.html

I totally agree with Carlux that one week is ever enough and am so glad we listened to her when we first visited six years ago.

I also agree with annhig that Padirac is unique. You certainly can visit Rocamadour on the same day but get to Padirac early. It opens at 9:30. Lacave, also in that direction, is worthwhile too although it isn't mentioned as much. It's all concretions and photography is allowed, or was when we visited six years ago. Padirac, although very impressive, has vey few concretions and I really like them.

Carlux, I took a photo of the man who discovered Maxange while I was there, realizing the future historical significance!

The grandmother of the former CEO of Banco Santander, was one of the children who found Altamira.