We wake up early, eat a quick breakfast, pack up everything and then do a quick tour of the farm before we head towards Font de Gaume. Outside the fog is really thick which makes our walk a bit outerworldly with horses and houses appearing almost as ghosts from the thick fog.
The farm actually looks really interesting and we would have liked to explore more so we are a bit sad that we have to leave already. But the next destination is time sensitive so on we go.
A bit before 9 we start the drive to Font de Gaume which is close to Domaine de la Rhonie. We have to arrive before it opens for the tour at 9:30 as besides 5 reserved places that we couldn’t get there are only 5 other “first come-first serve” places per tour. This is done to protect the prehistoric paintings/sketches inside and while it sounds like great policy it makes it hard to visit the cave. Somehow we get lucky and find tickets for the first tour – most visitors are foreigners so the chosen language for the tour is English.
There is a short hike uphill to the cave where at the entrance we leave all belongings in a “locker” cave. This unfortunately includes cameras as pictures are forbidden inside the cave. We are not sure what to expect from the engravings and the first ones appear to confirm our fears as we can barely see the bisons and animals, however as we go deeper they get clearer and we also get better at noticing them and we get really entranced by the art. It looks beautiful and there are even colors on some of them – you really start to wonder how some “cavemen” could do such beautiful work. The guide is also good in explaining what to see and where so overall we really felt that it was a worthwhile experience and made us desire to visit a few more prehistoric caves in the future.
Returning we have a bit more time to enjoy the fall colors before deciding to see if there are more caves open in the area before we have to leave further south.
