World Heritage Site

The Vézère Valley was my last WHS ‘to do’ in mainland France. In preparation I found it difficult to get a good overview of the Vézère locations, especially for a visit out of season. So I made a spreadsheet to come to terms with the different access policies. It turns out that 2 out of the 15 locations are permanently closed to visitors, 6 aren’t open during winter months and the others … well, lots of oddities there as well. A general warning: always check the opening hours on the French section of the respective official website, as they may not always update the English version.

I started my visit with a pilgrimage to Lascaux I – the original Lascaux cave. It has been closed off to visitors since 1963, but on Google Streetview I noticed that a paved road runs along its entrance. I left my car at the entrance to Lascaux II and went on further exploration on foot. The whole area was eerily quiet and there are a lot of No Entry signs, but accessing this road seems to be OK. What you’ll find in the end is only a fence and a gate of course, but it has a UNESCO sign!

I continued with attending the last tour of the day at Lascaux IV, the 2016 replica. The tour is already well-described in earlier reviews; I found it disappointing. Especially the audiovisual experience at the end is awkward. With a 20 EUR entrance fee, I’d say skip Lascaux IV and go for one of the original locations.

The next morning I got up early for a special reason: to get inside the Font de Gaume cave, the only original painted site that still can be visited. Tickets cannot be booked in advance: you have to secure one of the numbered seats in front of the ticket office before the opening hour of 9.30. In the busy summer months you have to be there by 7 a.m., on a Sunday in February I guessed 8.15 would be fine. It turned out I was the first of the day. Eventually 12 more visitors showed up. We were all able to join the first scheduled tour at 10.00.

One can enter this cave for 30 minutes only with a guide. There is a narrow passage through the cave and you have to be careful not to scrape along the walls with your clothes: it is all very fragile. The only modification made for modern visitors is the addition of electrical lighting. As in Lascaux, the light-colored calcite walls are decorated with images of animals. We saw (many) bison, mammoths, reindeer and horses. Black and red (brown) are the most used colors here.

At the beginning of the cave, the paintings are unfortunately damaged by graffiti from early visitors. Deeper into the cave system the scenes get more and more beautiful: two reindeer standing head to head, a male deer licking a female and a row of 5 fully colored, clearly distinguishable bison. This cave is surely worth the early rise and waiting outside for an hour in the cold!

Also in the town of Les Eyzies, the National Prehistoric Museum holds finds from the caves and other regional prehistoric sites. One of the most special is an oil lamp found in Lascaux - 17,000 years old and shaped like a large spoon. It used to be filled with animal fat. From La Madeleine, they show an object cut from reindeer antlers: it represents a bison licking itself. The archaeological site of La Madeleine is unfortunately closed in winter. I drove there anyway, hoping to see something from a distance, but it is well closed off. What rests is a view of the Vézère, the river that meanders like a thread through this prehistoric valley.