Grotte de Font-de-Gaume
 

How far in advance do you need reservations for late September? I have tried phoning but am not able to get anyone other than prerecorded French messages that are very fast. Unfortunately our hotel has not responded to request for assistance. We really have only one day to do it since it is closed the other day we will be in the area.
Thanks for any insight.
Mary Ann

You can probably get on a tour of Font-de-Gaume in late September with just a few days' notice, but it will almost certainly be a French-speaking one. They generally have no English-speaking tours after the end of summer.

At any rate, you might want to fax (from the USA: 011-33-5-53-35-26-18), asking for a confirmation fax in return. That way, assuming they respond, when you show up you'll have written confirmation.

St. Cirq - Unfortunately although I can send a fax, we have problems receiving. We do not leave the machine plugged in since there is a problem with differentiating between calls and faxes and the fax machine cuts in on all calls. I guess I will give them one more try tomorrow since it is past closing with the time difference today.

With what you said, when we get to France about 4 days before then we will try to make the reservation or ask our hotel to try. We would like to go on the 23rd and had hoped they would still have English speaking tours.
Thanks, Mary Ann

We went to Font-de-Gaume in July. Arrived at 9 in the morning for a 9:30 opening. Signed up for a later tour with no problem. They always save some space for walk-in traffic. The tour was in French because the English speaking guide had just finished his/her rotation. My wife loved it. For once I had the right to translate (for the whole group) without furtively whispering in her ear very brief explanations of what was being said.

If you have a Kinko's or similar copy center near you, you can both send and receive faxes there. Faxes can be sent to you at Kinko's number and will be held for you, for a fee. I did that once a few years ago when making hotel reservations in Greece, before I bought my own fax machine. I also have a simple fax machine that's hooked up to my answering machine, i.e. I do not have a dedicated line for it. Sometimes it does not accurately perceive whether an incoming call is a normal call or a fax, so the incoming fax does not get through . However, that problem usually occurs when a fax is sent automatically from some big fast high-tech fax machine. Possibly, if Font du Gaume is sending form a simple model, your machine will get it right.

I took an English-speaking tour of Font-de-Gaume with an American group. However, I took a regular French tour of Combarelles on my own. Everyone on the tour was French except a German couple and me. The German woman and I understood French but spoke it badly. The guide understood English but was not comfortable speaking it. She was very accommodating. She spoke more slowly when we told her (in French) that we didn't understand something, and when we had questions that we found too difficult to ask in French, we asked partly in English, and she responded slowly and carefully in French. You might be able to work out something like that with your guide at Font-de-Gaume. It's an amazing, mind-boggling place, and although it is very much worthwile to listen to the guide's explanations, it's still worth going out of your way to see it even if you may not understand the French commentary.

There are web sites where you can sign up to receive free faxes on the internet. They usually charge to send faxes, but you are lucky if you only need to receive. They are sent to you by email (or you are notified by email) and the FAX is a graphic attachement. This is actually more convenient as you have an electronic copy.

I think JFAX is one of the best of these -- it is now j2.com and here is their link
http://www.j2.com/free/free.asp

Just be sure to emphasize in bold, etc, the FAX number they should reply to, as I've found sometimes places will return FAX to the number that came in, even if you tell them in the letter to return FAX to a diff. phone no.

MaryAnn:

If you want to write to me at [email protected], I can probably solve your problem. I'll be in the Dordogne later this month and I'm pretty familiar with the Font-de-Gaume staff. Send me an e-mail and I can probably help you out.