Day 33 - Montignac-Lascaux to Sarlat La Canéda - Gorging in France ...Then Basquing in the Pyrenees - 2023

May 20, 2023

Day 33 - Montignac-Lascaux to Sarlat La Canéda

Another Amazing Day - Intimate and Contemplative

What an interesting and unique day. We started and finished in towns with well preserved medieval centres, had a short but hilly ride on our beloved deserted D roads … and the focal point …. a few hours in one of the most famous cultural / anthropological / archeological places on earth, the Lascaux caves.

Two days ago we were following in Jacquie Gaudet’s footsteps at Gouffre de Paridac, today we are in Susan Carpenter’s tracks. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, when we were in Paris with Susan and going over the outline of our trip, she strongly recommended that we incorporate Lascaux into our plans, and specifically Lascaux II. The link above to the Wikipedia page will give you all the background on the discovery and significance of the Lascaux caves and their paintings, and also details what all the ‘numbered Lascaux’s are - there are four of them!

Coles notes version, Lascaux I is the original cave and paintings and has been closed to the public since 1963 for preservation purposes. Lascaux II is an almost perfect replica of the most famous Lascaux chamber, the Hall of Bulls, with a few additional interpretative displays, that was opened in the early 1980’s. Lascaux III is a travelling display, and Lascaux IV is a very large, very modern interprative centre that has a complete reconstruction of all of the Lascaux cave complex, that was opened in 2016.

For us, the Lascaux II tour was ideal. You had to pre book and there was only one English language tour per day (at 1:30) and the group size was limited to about 25 people. It was very low tech and intimate and the guide, a gent named Gwenn, was informative, engaging, entertaining and funny. The group was also engaged and interesting.

After a few minutes of discussion on the surface where Gwenn went over the interesting history of the discovery of the caves by a few local teens in 1940, and pointing out where the real cave is (a few hundred metres away), we descended into the cave, by torchlight (real flame torch … not a British battery powered flashlight)!

This made the tour seem very real, and very intimate as the flickering flame illuminated portions of the astounding paintings as Gwenn passed his torch along them. This is what it would have been for the people who made the paintings some 17,000 years ago, and for the young gents who fell into it in 1940.

Eventually, the modern lighting came on allowing the ‘cave ‘ and the paintings to be seen in full, and this lighting was done in a very low key way, maintaining the feel of a real cave (as did the temperature and humidity - the replica is buried below ground at the same elevations as the original).

Not surprisingly, pictures aren’t allowed in the cave (replica) so you’ll have to look online to see what we saw. The interpretation chamber that is just before the cave had a couple of reproductions (of the reproductions in the replica cave!) that we were allowed to photograph. I only have two from here, and one of the statue of Robot, the small dog who actually found the cave entrance!

Don’t think you’ve escaped another Aunt Betty travelogue though … I’ve got lots of pics from the medieval towns of Montignac and Sarlat .. plus a few from the fantastic dinner we had in Sarlat!

So, that was Lascaux, definitely go if you get the chance … or better yet … make it a priority when you next visit France.

Since our Lascaux tour didn’t start until 1:30, we had a lazy sleep in morning, a great breakfast at 9, I caught up on this journal, and we had a spin around Montignac on what was a beautiful warm and sunny Saturday morning. Given that Lascaux is one of the most visited places in France, and this was a major long weekend, Montignac was surprisingly pleasant as far as crowds go. There was lots of life in the place but it wasn’t crowded at all. This place also seemed to be inhabited by some of the most chilled out cats we’ve seen, and one particularly funny little bulldog who seemed to be everywhere and acted liked he owned the town.

After our Lascaux tour, we retrieved our bags from our hotel (supper friendly staff), changed into our bike clothes and then set off to retrace the 25 km’s to Sarlat that we rode in on yesterday. It was a very good ride, three decent hills (~500 m of elevation for the three of them), largely deserted D roads and a few little villages along the way. Quintessential French cycling.

When we rode through Sarlat two days ago, RWGPS routed us ride through the middle of the pedestrianized medieval centre. That was great for getting a feel for the place (and to see the narrow restaurant lined streets - we knew where to head for dinner!) and the feel was … beautiful place and obviously very popular given the crowded streets on a Friday afternoon!

So coming into town today we made a few route alterations to go around the old centre to our hotel that was just on the south of the old town and this worked out perfectly. We checked in, got cleaned up and were out wandering the streets by 6:30. Our priority was to find a place to eat as we hadn’t had much lunch, and this place was still pretty crowded!

There are hundreds of restaurants in the old town, and without any prior knowledge or local recommendations, it’s a daunting task to pick something, more of a roulette game than an educated choice. The marble fell in a winning slot for us though. I was randomly searching places on Google when I spotted one place that had ‘Petites Assiettes et Bon Vins’. A quick look at their online menu confirmed we had a target … food that was right what we were looking for (foie and endless canard is getting to us!). Coin Coin is right on the edge of the old town and is very modern in its decor and menu. We arrived at the stroke of 7 when they opened, were warmly received by the chef, who was outside having a break with some of his staff before the action started, and his wife who runs the floor inside.

A great Beatles soundtrack, that the staff was singing along to, provided a perfect background to a sensational dinner. We almost ate the menu and the chef came by three times, and the wait staff many more, to chat about the dishes we were having …. All in an informal engaging way. They were as excited about the food as we were, and it showed!

We wandered back to our hotel through the old town, snapping random pics that captured a bit of what we were seeing and experiencing and that provided a wonderful close to a wonderful day.

Tomorrow is a ‘travel day’, but not by bike. I mentioned yesterday that this section of the trip were B-side filler days, and since we ventured further north than our original plan to go to Lascaux, were making up some distance by training it from Sarlat to Dax, where we will be back on schedule. It’s a regional train from Sarlat to Bordeaux where we have a relaxed hour and a half to catch the next leg, a TGV to Dax. We managed to book this enough in advance to get a TGV with bike space, which is clearly stated on our ticket that we’ve reserved and paid for this, but we’ve read about other CB’ers experiences where this isn’t worth the paper it’s written on (poor analogy these days as we actually don’t have any paper tickets!). We’ll see how all that works out tomorrow!

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SOTD - In My Life by The Beatles (John Lennon really…)

It starts with ‘There are places I’ll remember’ … thats all you need. This was a track that played during dinner, and that line just stuck.