The 120 mile trek to cover the 88 miles to the prehistoric caves

The Cave of Rouffignac is the real deal of a cave. It sits 23 miles outside of Sarlat in a quiet, wooded area. It was one of those places I arrived with little information and few expectations. OMG it is amazing. It’s a cave that was inhabited?explored? by Cro-Magnon people 17,000 years ago. The cave was used as a hideout by the French Resistance during World War II and then taken over as a tourist attraction in the 50s. Access is tightly limited to 550 people a day and it’s only open 7 months a year. Above is the entrance – no pictures allowed inside.

We were taken into the cave on a little train that would never pass any OSHA regulations in the US – and driven a mile in the dark feeling exactly like we were on the best Disneyland ride ever (except no seat belts, shoulder belts, sides to the train, sufficient safety lighting or safe alternate exit system), where we got to see the cave art of the 17,000 year old dwellers. Our guide had a perfect combination of unlimited English language skills and overwhelming French accent, so he spoke liberally and expressively to us in English and yet we gained little information. He continuously apologized for his very strong accent and so polite behavior dictated we not try to clarify any of his speech. He lectured extensively about the Care Bears of the cave and our little train of 19 Road Scholars (6 PhDs, 5 attorneys, 2 retired CIA employees etc.) tried and tried to figure out what he meant. (For you traveling behind us, it’s a Cave Bear he’s talking about, but I still don’t know why.)

There are only horses, wooly mammoths, bison and ibexes, with a total of over 250 drawings. Here’s two I took from pictures at the entrance:

It just defies logic that I can enter Rouffignac Cave 17,000 years later and see those drawings for myself. In a nutshell – that’s why I travel!!

We spent a lot of time on the road yesterday covering the 88 miles from Bordeaux to Sarlat. A lot of it was due to a French construction worker who either wanted to mess with our bus of American tourists or just didn’t listen to where we were going. Our important goal – as always with Road Scholar – was a cool restaurant that was hosting an elaborate lunch for us with food you’d normally only serve for a Christmas dinner.

Approaching a bridge on our tiny French road somewhere in the middle of nowhere, that construction worker (see him for yourself right above) told us the road was closed ahead and we needed to go around and so off we went. Around. It was a lovely meandering hour and then we came to a stop, exactly where we started, having discovered, together, as a group of Road Scholar explorers, that you cannot go Around. This time, though, the French Construction Worker was not present – on break, having a cigarette, looking the other way or in the bathroom – and so our intrepid bus of 19 – 5 walking with canes and 14 walking without – we “explored” past that road block – undeterred, probably just like Cro-Magnon Man discovering the cave – because we really needed to get to lunch. And it was funny, because we did come to the actual blockage – which was exactly 10 feet further than we needed to go to park the bus and head up to lunch:

Below is the place we ate – can you see the roofline of the little house built into the rock?

And this is the lunch I was served. I will allow that the French know how to cook a nicely-browned omelette. Ron was given some dark meat chicken again at this meal, and, once again, I had to share my omelette with him. Now he has given in and changed over to vegetarian meals for the remainder of the trip. Ron wonders – and rightly so – what the Citizens of France do with the lovely white meat chicken breasts, because all we see is drumsticks.

Now we’re in Sarlat for three days. I haven’t seen much yet but I did get a couple of pictures as we walked to dinner, which occurred a mere four hours after lunch ended.

I’ll leave you with this bathroom picture (Sorry, SDS, I know you hate these, but no toilet visible!) from our lunch restaurant, built into the hill. They certainly have embraced the idea of respecting the existing landscape with their architectural plans. Look at that tile cutting around the rock!