Wednesday April 23rd Montigniac to Reignac

LASCAUX II visit.

We arrive at Lascaux II in plenty of time for our 11.50am tour. This is fortunate as the site isn’t exactly geared up for Camper van parking. Lucky we arrived at about the same time as the end of the previous tour or parking could have been dreadful, apart from that the site is brilliant, really well set up and really really pretty, hidden away in the forest.

Lascaux II is so called because it is an exact replica of the original Lascaux caves which the minister of culture closed in 1963. They were closed when it became apparent that public access was damaging the artwork within. Said artwork is 17000 years old and both the original cave and the artwork has been recreated in Lascaux II. A local artist was recruited who spent 6 years using the same prehistoric techniques to recreate the artwork. The site is a UNESCO world heritage site and the most visited site of its kind in the world (we think). It’s amazing, just go. Our tour guide brought the whole thing to life, informative, educational and funny he made the caves and the paintings of our prehistoric ancestor “Cro Magnon” come to life. An example of Cro Magnon’s work:

Our attempts...erm... 

Jonboy sticks to original techniques..(Vino colapso may have been involved)

Noush cheats with nail varnish and an entire make up palette

Hmmm.. not sure we’d be famous in 17000 years!

After Lascaux we head to our earmarked French Passion site. Don’t like him though so we drive on and head towards the next destination on our new route: La Roque Christophe. One tour a day is enough though so we park up and decide to do it tomorrow. The car park we fall into turns out to be for the Prehisto Park at the foot of the Fortress de Reignac. We don’t realise this until after we’ve parked and we turn around and actually look up…. Not a bad view!

Odd things seem to get spook the dogs today, perhaps it’s ghosts from the castle, perhaps it’s the thunderstorm that hits us later, but Norm nearly ends up in the river all for chasing someone’s tossed apple core and not great day for Moo either as he gets spooked on walk by fake mammoth roars from prehisto park and debates attacking a fake plastic wolf. We try to calm everybody down by going for a quick bread and a sundowner at Les Eyzies down the road, but typically this is when the thunderstorm hits (it was scorching 2 minutes ago!!) so everybody ends up drenched, but at least amused.

Thunder lingers in the air and the fog is rising off the river, the fortress is lit up and extra specially spooky… we turn in. Moo stands guard.