Dordogne France- Prehistoric studies Lascaux and more

Need to come back and polish off this entry some...but busy day so this will have to do for now.

Next Geneva, Chamonix and on to Italy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

This comes to you from the kitchen table with all of my maps and literature out before me. I thought I could finish this entry yesterday (that was my goal) but much of the information I have to share here is on maps and in brochures and just the thought of tackling them was enough to keep me from posting a thing.

I am on my lap top which really is too small for my chubby fingers and I find that I move at a snail’s pace on it so as usual bare with/

Speaking of chubby…no asking me where the pictures of me are…let’s just say that I have noticed the folks who ask me , “where are the pictures of you?” are usually the ones who don’t share pictures of themselves (for the same reasons)…so there said it…but it’s true!!!! Anyway when I can figure out a way to lose the pounds, wrinkles and more importantly the number of chins I have I will share some pictures of me J In the meantime adorable kiddos will have to do…

This computer also seems to think it is fixing my spelling and in many cases fixes what is not broken…I don’t know how to turn off that feature…but that in itself is making this almost impossible to complete.

So I have finally divided all of my brochures and scrapbook stuff (I’ve never scrapbooked so it is humerous I have tons of  envelopes of such stuff that I call “scrapbook stuff”)…anywho much to share if you hit this part of France.

Our iternerary had us staying in Puy Du Fou for the night but as we loaded into the car and knew we had a few hours of driving to get to our next destination we decided to proceed and drive during the night. The kiddos played among the big campers as we cleaned out the vehichle and got ready to head to our Prehistoric part of our trip and hit Dordogne France, one of  my favorite areas!!!!

I forgot the exact amount of time spent in the car for this drive but I think it was 2-3 hours…not a biggie, very doable.  The kids were exhausted and once fed drifted off to sleep and Steve and I proceeded with me nagging that I really did want us to move to Europe for five years…and then a one year trip around the world. Steve’s just nodded his head, “keep dreaming honey”, but I know deep down he thinks I am going to take the kids around the world and leave him to earn the money at home J

The Lascaux caves, and the surroundings were next on our trip!!!!

We all remember pictures of these famous caves in our History books growing up, but there is so much about them that I did not know.  I barely remember going to them as a child…I did go…but it is a fuzzy memory.  It was not until I was planning our trip that I came to realize that the Lascaux caves you visit today are not the real Lascaux caves painted by prehistoric ancestors.   Anyway the cave has been remade into Lascaux II…seems that all of the visitors to the real site were doing a lot of damage just by breathing in Lascaux I and it is now closed to visitors. Number II had images of the destruction and I must admit it was a lot of destruction in a very small amount of time, very interesting to see. I  thought I would be disappointed in going to a reproduction and I am happy to say that it was a thrill and until now as I type I actually had forgotten that it was not the “real deal”. They have remade every curve of the caves to resemble the real cave…it was wonderful. I found our tour guide to be pretty cheesy, you can’t go thru without one and we ended up in an all American tour…no children (school had started in the States) so just your “typical” tourist , I feel safe to say all American tourist who laughed at every dumb joke the guy cracked, almost nervous laughs, but it was pitiful to watch…I would have preferred a more educational viewing, but it was fabulous when he chose to stop the stupid jokes..

So I had not remembered that the cave was remade…but I also had not remembered that the cave only had one very faint picture of a man…all other figures were animals. I also had not really ever realized that it was not full of hunting scenes. Maybe it’s just me but I think of the Lascaux caves and for some reason I thought hunting images were on the caves and they are not. Was this a shrine to animals??? Possibly.

Lascaux was a perfect example of the speech I gave to the children everywhere we went…as we stood in the Roman Forum, as we stood before some of the most famous painting in the world in Paris and Italy, as we stood in front of some of the most famous sculptures in the world…as we stood before grand masterpieces I kept telling the kids, “you will probably come back one day…but you might not ever see it the way you see it now”. In the Roman Forum the boys picked up rocks…jumped on rocks, jumped on huge columns, could touch where Cesear had stood.   The day will come and soon where  a brightly colored orange rope will separate us from the stones. The day will come, and soon, where all of Michelangelos sculptures will be like his beautiful Pieta and behind glass, the day will come where it is not our ability to follow rules that will keep us from being able to touch Monet’s paintings…

The Lascaux caves really were the perfect example for me to tell the children to enjoy what is here and enjoy it NOW.

WOW how would I have ever known that two huge lessons would be served up to me on  a silver platter to drive my point home. I think it was within 60 hours that a Monet painting that we had just seen in Paris was destroyed by vandals who entered the museum…just in the past week someone put red paint into the Trevi fountain in Rome, where we stood!!! I made certain the children saw these articles and that we discussed them, I hope we can take them back, I hope more than anything that they can afford to go back one day…but even if they can they will view these masterpieces from different angles I have no doubt.  I stood on Stonehenge as a child…I’ve kissed The Little Mermaid….two things I could not do today.

Anyway within two weeks of time my lesson was really driven home…

The Lascaux cave has been desrcribed as “The Sistine Chapel of Prehistoric Times” and I think that is a wonderful description.

This is important to note if you ever go…the tickets are not sold at the cave (replica) they are sold in a town near there called Montignac…at this location you will find a lot of information about other tourist attrations in the area…enjoy many do what you can the children will love it!!!!  Also since you can not go thru the caves without a tour guide you kind of need to know when the English guide will be, they will of course tell you, this was wonderful in that it made us take in sites we might not have done if we were able to just drive up to the cave and go in. This was our busiest part of our trip in that we hopped from place to place…and the prehistoric era had our full attention in everything we did.  This was a wonderful time and we took in so much…

Lascaux caves   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

Official site of the Lascaux caves   http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/

This area is called Dordogne in France, it is just a perfect spot on Earth. I love the homes made of stone, the rivers and folks canoeing on them, the picnics to be had on the side of the road…it really is a beautiful area.  We pulled up at one small Inn starving for food and were saddened that they did not start serving dinner until 7PM (this happens a lot)…we usually eat late but this was a cozy little Inn and I would have done anything to have had a meal there, I was starving and the road trip was waiting…I even offered to pay them more to create us a meal, but it appears the chef goes home (or somewhere) and was nowhere to be found.

I said it every day and still do…each and every day spent could have been a vacation in itself…I could spend years in this area.

In Montignac get maps and any literature you’ll need…it is a wonderful place to stock up on brochures and to ask the gals behind the counter as to what you should see.   A trip to a good Tourist office is worth its weight in gold.  I said earlier that the drive from Puy Du Fou to this area was about 2-3 hours and I might be slightly underestimating that…now as I type I remember at night driving thru Montignac looking for a place to stay that would put us right near the place to get tickets in the morning, there was no lack of camping spots but being early in the morning hours we always had to weigh if it was better to put up the tent and disturb sleeping kiddos to then turn around and take it down hours later or just find a nice place to park and sleep (which was never in our plans pre trip). We ended up beside a river with a nice parking spot and since the kids were asleep just pulled over and fell asleep there.  In the morning Reichen and I then walked back to the town of Montignac and returned with tickets and picnic goodies…there is a picture of the children eating beside a river  that was taken that morning.  This was the spot where we watched people canoe down the river and picnic on the side of the road.

My map of this area is heavily marked with hours of operations and tidbits of information…there is a huge disadvantage to going in the summer for obvious reasons, most of all the crowds…but once September hits the hours of operation change at these locations…so I have all of our sites marked and then the hours that they are open. It is not unusual for places to close for two hours during the lunch time hours.  This is the only disadvantage and you need to give yourself some time to map out such information.

I never visited this site till now but it would be a good place to look at ahead of time and to even request brochures ahead of time.  http://www.dordogne-perigord-tourisme.fr/Web_GB/sommaire/jeu_sommaire_GB.htm

So tickets were bought in Montignac for the Lascaux caves and Le Thot.

I am happy they talked up Le Thot and the other sites to see for they were all a treat and a wonderful day of entertainment.

In this area of France they offer tourist packages from Prehistoric studies, Medieval studies and Renaissance studies…we stuck with Prehistoric since we had the other bases covered in other stops on our trip…but boy what I would do to have been able to take in all of the sites.

We entertained ourselves at Le Thot prior to going to Lascaux, it is a museum about Homo Sapiens and how they lived and how they worked and the animals that shared their world.  We also purchased rocks with images from Lascaux’s caves here for much cheaper than we would have purchased them any place else. I am guessing about $4-$5 each…but they were really enjoyed by the kids and included the minimal paints needed to color them.  Here is a site I just found that best describes le Thot http://www.best-of-perigord.tm.fr/sites/semitour/anglais/thot_uk.html.

From Lascaux we made the small drive (all fo these are near eachother) to Tursac and to the Prehistoric Parc…this was wonderful and I almost passed it up thinking it might be a little park in the backyard of someones home. The children really enjoyed this little park. It was a lovely walk thru the landscape with little stops that hade an example of a prehistoric hut, fire, hunting, even a mammoth and an outdoor exhibit of how they were hunted.  What really caught everyones attention was these fat orange slugs…there was a total fascination with these orange slugs…I have a picture from the area that shows them…they were bright orange.

From the Park we rushed to an amazing under ground cave that had an amazing story to it…seems they thought it to be where the devil lived years and years before ever venturing into it. The story is that even a sheriff of the town wanted it filled in due to all of the stories without knowing what gems were beneath.

Here is the best site I found to this cave… http://www.perigord.com/proumeyssac/ it was fabulous, I was very surprised at the access to it, they didn’t mind if people touched the stalactites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalactitesand stalagmites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalagmite    (think the "tights" need to hang on from the ceiling)  which bothered me so…I don’t know I have been caves with very few of them and strict rules not to touch them so surprised me how liberal they were with the tourist in the cave.  There was a small playground where the children played till the sun went down and it was a fun and educational day…what better way to absorb the prehistoric era.

The night ended up being one of our most challenging decisions…we really wanted to go to Carcassone…our prhistric activities were way more than we ever dreamed they would be and our day was gone before we knew it. We had to be in Geneva the next night to meet friends for dinner…we had to say bye bye to Carcassone…which was fine. The thought of the wall city really excited Reichen the most, but this was one of those times where again we had to remind ourselves “there will be a next time”…

We were on the road awhile when I suggested we get a hotel for the night. This would be our only night in a hotel…and it came at the perfect time…Because of the size of the family we needed to get two rooms, they connected and you never would have known they were not one room except for we had two baths. AHHHHHH and we had ICE…we spent about $150 for that roon that night and the ice itself was worth every penny of it. It as the perfect time to stop and take baths. The children took out their knights and gladiators and pirates and while missing our travels on the road it was a nice refreshing evening to be had.

The hotel chain was called Hotel Campanile…I really appreciated this staff who even made calls to other hotels near by trying to see if they could and would fit our family into one room…we were told it was against the law due to how many of us there were.

The town we stayed in was called Cahors…

The hotel was not lavish but it certainly was clean and all we needed http://www.campanile.com/en/default.aspx.

In the morning we drove for a good hour on our way to Geneva when we decided we were going the wrong way…as we truned around to the minute we passed the hotel were had stayed at the night before….this was one of those moments I really would have liked a GPS system!!!!!!!!

I just found the receipt and the night for both rooms was 138 Euros…so a good $150…but again it was worth it!!!