We’ve spent the last two days looking at cave paintings and goofing off. Thursday we visited Lascaux. The Lascaux cave is closed to the public. Instead, the French built an exact duplicate for people to visit. Entering the cave was an overwhelming experience. The art is simply amazing. Animals look 3 dimensional. They show motion and spirit. The ceiling as well as the walls were painted. The artists built scaffolding and ladders to reach the ceiling. All this was done 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. There is no doubt these paintings were very important to the people who painted them, but we don’t know why they were important.

Our cave Friday was Font de Gaume. This is the only place in Europe where one can walk into a cave and see the original polychromatic paintings. The number of paintings is much less. The ceilings were not painted because they were not suitable. And the paintings were faded. But the quality of the art was on par with what we saw at Lascaux.

Today, we will leave our hotel and drive to Limoges. Along the way, we have an option to visit Rouffignac Cave, or take a hike, or if we are very lucky do both.