A Dordogne Day

We spent two nights in Sarlat, a quaint town in the heart of France.








The jumping off point for the Lascaux cave is the cute little village of Montignac. A perfect and charming little French town, which was in the middle of a celebration.









Our destination of the day: Lascaux II, Cro-Magnon Cave Paintings. The caves were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers and a dog. The 70th anniversary of the discovery of the caves will be celebrated on Sunday with all four of the teenagers returning to the cave - now a bit older - along with the President of France (no word on the dog). These caves were closed to the public in 1963 because of deterioration through the introduction of humidity and fungi. More damage was done in 20 years than in the previous 15,000! Lascaux II is detailed replica of the original cave art showing horses, bulls, and a single image of a man. Impressive use of color, action, and dimension at such a rudimentary level. 15,000 years ago! Holy cow.





No photos were allowed in the cave, so I snapped a photo of a post card!


We asked about where the original Lascaux was located and it was only 200 meters up the hill, so we made the short walk to at least have a look see. The entrance was completely closed off by a tall fence, but it was very cool to see the original site, even from a distance.



Some of my favorite photos for this day.

Day 5: Our French Adventure Continues

One of the reasons we came to the Loire region was to visit a castle (there are over 1,000 in the area!) and that we did yesterday morning. We chose the mother of all castles, Chateau de Chenonceau, which is actually the third most visited chateau in France (after Versailles and Fontainebleau) according to Rick Steves. It is a 16th-century Renaissance palace that is situated along (and over) the Cher River. The cute couple at the end of this series of photos is an Australian couple we met at breakfast at our hotel and they accused us of bringing the rain so they kept trying to get away from us!









After checking out of our hotel, we headed for Amboise, where we spent a portion of the afternoon. We roamed the narrow streets and had lunch along the river.













After leaving Amboise, we had a long drive through the countryside (about four hours of driving). Come along for a bit:







Along our driving route, we came upon a cemetary in Chatillon sur Indre and since I'm gaga for cemetaries (and we needed to stretch our legs), we stopped for a stroll. It was a very old and decrepit cemetary and I resisted the urge to snatch up an arm or leg from the many broken crucifixes (maybe it was the term grave robber that Howard used that prevented any illegal action on my part). I apologize for the many photos, but I can't help it -- my darker art friends will understand and appreciate the montage.












We ate a very late dinner last night, not finishing until about 22:00! (That would be 10 pm.) I had a lovely vegetarian salad with toast and cheese, and Howard, well, Howard is going to have to explain some of his recent eating explorations in another post. For last night, he had raw beef. Enough said . . .



PS When we arrived in Sarlat, where we are staying for two nights, the hotel did not have our reservation (what are we doing wrong?). We managed to find lodging at a beautiful hotel just a few doors down. Here's the entrance: