Caves and Castles Day 5 - Sept 25, 2009

This was our last full day on the Caves and Castles tour. The morning was all archaeological caves, so there are no photos, of course.

First we visited Font de Gaume, which may have been the most impressive cave we visited. It featured over 200 multi-coloured wall paintings (to quote Steve). This is an excellent link to photos and information to Font de Gaume. Thanks to Don, whoever you are.

Megan's pages on Font de Gaume are here  and here. The second page also starts her description of Les Combarelles, which is mentioned further along in this blog.

After the cave tour, we had a bit of time to kill, so we stopped and bought some Pate Foie Gras at a very reputable location near Les Eyzies. There are stories of the Perigord geese being force fed and living in misery, but the photo below shows the truth,

We then had a workman's lunch near Les Eyzies. In France a two hour lunch is customary, and this one included 4 courses and wine (of course). Steve told us that a good restaurant could be identified by the number of workmen's white vans parked there at noon.

After lunch, we made a brief side trip to another archaeological site called a Micoque. This was a lovely spot in the woods, where I searched vainly for any sign of bird life.

Then, it was on to Les Combarelles, our last cave tour. This site features engravings in the cave walls. This was a very personal tour as it was just the six of us and a tour guide.


Here is Megan's blog on the site. I could not find any other good web link for Les Combarelles.

Our last tour stop was at a flint maker's shop, where Bernard Ginelli demonstrated the tool and weapon making techniques employed by prehistoric man.

Finally, Judie joined us for a glass of wine by the Vezere River. Thus ended the Caves and Castles tour.
 

My photo album for the day can be seen here.

Many thanks to Steve and Judie Burman for the excellent time spent on the tour. Both Edith and I heartily recommend their tour to anyone reading this blog. They offer varying types of tours depending on your interests, including tours into the Bordeauex region.

For more information, check out their website at http://www.cavesandcastles.com/ .

Caves and Castles Day 4 - Afternoon and Evening - Sept 24, 2009

After lunch we headed for Beynac to see Castelnaud. This was our first castle that was intact. It featured a comprehensive medieval weapons collection including giant crossbows, cannons and trebuchets (catapults).



There was an interesting sign at the entrance apologizing for the parking rates:

 The view from the top of Castelnaud looks across the Dordogne River to Castle Beynac, which is impressive from afar, but according to Steve is empty inside and in disuse.

In the evening we were taken to dinner at Auberge de Layotte. This restaurant is located down narrow gravel roads in the French countryside. The menu featured "cuisine savage" which included home made pates, edible flowers, wine served in ordinary drinking glasses and homemade digestives afterward.


The Proprietors were another couple, Regis and Sabine. At one point Sabine brought out their son to have

Steve and Judie check and help with his English homework. I can only imagine how hard these two work every day, and the long hours they put in.


Pictures from the meal are courtesy of fellow traveler Jack Brumit, as I neglected to take my camera again.

The link to my photo album for the second part of the day is here.

Caves and Castles Day 4 - Morning - Sept 24, 2009

Day 4 was a castle day, no caves were visited. After a brief visit to a nearby village, we headed to La Madeleine, an archaeological site that also featured a ruined castle.

A tour bus arrived just ahead of us, so we diverted down the road to a fortress called Maison Forte de Reignac. It is built into a cliff face overlooking the Vezere River. Steve had hoped to show me Peregrine falcons there, but no luck. The fortress contained a hodge-podge of antiques and artifacts, with some museum like exhibits. It is most spectacular for it's setting, and the view from on high.

Then back to La Madeleine, which is where the famous bison carving we saw on Day 1 was found.

We toured the castle ruins and listened to Steve wax poetic about the archaeological significance of the site.

Megan's blog for the first part of the day is here.


The morning ended with a quick lunch beside the Dordogne River with an appearance of a group of Mute Swans.  It was nice to see them on their native continent. 

The Photos for the morning can be found here.

Caves and Castles Day 3 - Sept 23, 2009

Day 3 began with another brief visit to Montignac, this time I took my camera. The highlight of this brief stop was an old dog who was loitering outside a grocery store. When I entered, the dog scooted in behind me. His master was inside and was not too popular with the proprietor.

Wednesday is public market day in the medieval village of Sarlat. We spent the morning shopping for souvenirs and ended up with three bottles of wine, two of which made it back home. There was one public washroom in marketplace, with three self-cleaning toilets. Unfortunately, they were unisex, and the cleaning cycle took 90 seconds in between uses. The end result was incredibly long line-ups. How typically French.

In the afternoon, we visited the caves of Cougnac. The first cave we toured had no paintings, but was interesting geologically with awesome collections of stalactites and stalagmites. We were allowed to take photos.

Megan's first blog of the day is here.

Our guide in the caves was a young woman named Isabelle (shown below). She conducted both French and English tours simultaneously, speaking a million miles an hour in both languages.

The second cave contained a number of paintings and markings, dating back 14 - 15,000 years. They are more subtle than the other caves we saw, but impressive nonetheless.

Megan's blog for the second cave is here.

The link for the Grottes de Cougnac is only available in French (the first flag at the bottom).

My photo album for the day is here.

Caves and Castles Day 2 - Sept 22, 2009

We spent the morning at Rouffignac "the Hundred Mammoths cave". In this cave, we rode a train which transports tourists with minimal impact on the cave. Again, photos were not allowed, although I took some of the cave entrance and the train.

Here is the official site for Rouffignac: www.grottederouffignac.fr/ .
Megan's Rouffignac blogs are here and here .

The next stop was our first castle - Chateau de l'Herm. This is a late 15th century castle that is now mostly in ruins. It was purchased by a couple, both archaeologists, who have initiated projects to protect the castle. It is also used for summer concerts and theater performances. The official website is www.chateaudelherm.com/accueil_ang.html  

Here is a shot of Megan running around the castle:

In the afternoon, we returned to Les Eyzies for lunch, and then spent time at an active Archaeological site, Abri Pataud. An archaeologist demonstrated the three dimensional grid system used to record where artifacts and fossils are found.

Finally, we walked down the street to Abri Cro Magnon, where remains of the first modern humans were found. Interestingly, in French Cro means Quarry, and Monsieur Magnon was the owner of the quarry where the remains were found
 
 

 
Megan's final blog entry for the day contains sketches of Rouffignac, the castle and Abri Cro Magnon.
 
To see my photos from the day, click here.

Caves and Castles Day 1 - Sept 21, 2009

I have departed from my usual photo presentation for the Caves and Castles tour for these reasons:

1. We were not allowed to take photos at any of the archaeological sites. This is a French National law that I was not about to break. Therefore most of the really interesting caves that we visited are not represented by any photos. By using the blog, I am able to include links to official web sites of some of the locations that we visited.
2. One of the members of our tour group was able to capture images of the sites, in her mind and sketch book. Megan Baehr is a 24 year old artist from Vermont. The purpose of her visit to the caves of southwestern France was to perform research for a graphic novel she plans to write about the pre-historic artists who created the cave paintings that we saw. She has graciously allowed me to provide links to her blog pages. I have attempted to provide links for each day, but you may wish to just read through her entire blog all at once.

Note about hyperlinks:
The blogging tool does not allow me to have links open in new windows or tabs. Therefore you should open the links by using the Right mouse key and selecting either new window or new tab.

As mentioned in Day 8 of our Paris Blog, we had a long Sunday of traveling before ending up at the cozy residence (Les Rosiers) of Steve and Judie the proprietors of the Caves and Castles tour.

To read about Megan's trip to France, read these pages of her blog : 1 , 2, 3, and 4 . (Or you can just read her blog starting from page 1 at your pace).

Upon waking up on Monday morning, I snuck out to see if there were any birds about. I was able to spot some collared doves, which are quite common. These birds are now spreading across North America and competing with our Mourning Doves.

After a wonderful breakfast we headed out and started with a visit to the nearby village of Montignac. I left my camera in the car, but got some shots of the village later in the week.

Next up was a visit to the Lascaux II caves. The Lascaux caves were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers, who had lost their dog. The caves were kept secret until after the war and eventually opened up to tourists. However, they were closed again in 1963 as the millions of tourists were damaging the paintings with their CO2 exhalations.

The French Government decided to replicate the caves and their art and Lascaux II was opened in the 70's.  As mentioned, no photos were allowed, but you can link to the official site here: www.lascaux.culture.fr/ . The Wikipedia entry for the caves is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

Megan's sketches of the village and cave are here .

After Lascaux were returned to Les Rosiers for lunch and then spent the afternoon exploring the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies, which is a stunningly picturesque village carved out of a curved cliff face.

Most of the photos I took on day 1 are of the village and the museum. Megan's sketches of Les Eyzies are here .

We finished with an authentic French meal at a restaurant in Turzac called La Source, owned by a very interesting dutch couple. The food pictures in the photo album are compliments of Megan, as I did not take my camera to the restaurant (duh). The restaurants website is here: www.restaurant-la-source.fr/

Here is the link to my photo album of Day 1.

Day 8 - Travel problems

When planning our trip south, we decided to take an earlier train so we could check our bags at the station in Brive and wander about the town a bit. We were betting on there being a bag check at the station, and booked a train that would get us there an hour earlier than the scheduled pickup by the tour operators.

On Sunday morning, we hustled all our baggage onto the metro, did the transfer at Place d'Italie, and arrived at the Gare Austerlitz about 2 hours before our departure.

We had a morning coffee and croissant (11 Euros) and waited for the 12:50 departure to come. Compared to air travel, there is no security for trains. We had our ticket punched and boarded the train, with luggage. At the appointed time the train pullled out of the station, the passengers started eating their cheese and bread, and then we stopped. It was announced that there was a problem with le traction (the engine) and further info would be provided. There seemed to be two options, load all the passengers onto other trains, or get another engine. After 90 minutes, it was announced (in French only) that we would be pushed back to the station and assigned a new engine. 

Meanwhile, the next train to Brive departed, meaning that our early train was now the later one. We contacted our tour person and told her about our late arrival and waited for departure. Our train left about 2 hours later than scheduled. We were not on the super-fast TGV, so we were looking at a 4 hour trip.

Upon arriving in Brive, we went to the front of the station and looked from someone from the Caves and Castles tour. After 30 minutes we were becoming concerned. Finally an older man with frizzy hair (Steve) appeared with a sign.

He had been waiting for us inside the station all the time. We proceeded to his car and met Megan, a young woman from Vermont who had come in on the other train, (the later one that arrived earlier). Upon arriving at their house (Les Rosiers) we met Steve's wife Judie, and the other two members of our group (Jack and Bernadette) who were from California.

We were then treated to a full French meal, with ample amounts of wine,and given our notes for the week's adventures.

Bernadette looks at notes with Steve and Megan looking in.