Title: my culture
Artist/Group: One Giant Leap (robbie
What is the magic of this place? Let’s see: the highest concentration of historic sites and monuments in the region, the local gastronomy, its beauty, tranquility and charm. Between dark forests of oaks and chestnut trees and spectacular rocky cliffs hide enchanted castles, fortifications and charming villages.
But what mostly stunned my imagination was the fact that this place has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic times. Remains of that primitive type of man, the Neanderthal and Cro Magnon, were found here, as well as vestiges of their way of life in caves and shelters. Then came the gauls and romans and so on.
A short itinerary beginning in the Lascaux Caves led us to the most relevant prehistoric sites, this does not mean there are many many more, but we did not have much time.
To begin with, the Lascaux Caves, near the village of Montignac, the number one prehistoric site in Europe. The caves were accidentally discovered by four boys who had lost their dog in a hole. Once they pulled out the dog they discovered an entrance to a tunnel. They had no lanterns, but came later to explore and found that the walls were covered with fantastic prehistoric drawings. The school teacher was told about this amazing find and the entire world new about this treasure. Unluckily, hundreds of tourists flocked into the caves causing the expected damages and finally in 1963 the caves were closed to the public. Only qualified visitors may visit the site, but we mad up an idea of the paintings and engravings by visiting the Lascaux II, a museum that resembles what the boys found back in 1940. Not the same as the original, but interesting. Feel free to explore. http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/
Half way between the caves and Les Ezyes, we stopped to pay a short visit to La Roque Saint-Christophe, http://www.roque-st-christophe.com/ a troglodytic site perched in a high cliff with natural rock shelters which were inhabited from the Prehistoric to the Middle Ages.
A few minutes later we were in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, a lost small town in the heart of the Vezere Valley, where in 1868 a geologist discovered five skeletons of a specimen very much alike nowadays human beings in the caves of Cro Magnon. And they called it the Cro Magnon man, guess why? Les Eyzies is now a small rural town of 900 inhabitants, who live mostly of their farm products, mainly foie gras and truffles, and of tourism. The star of this place is of course the National Museum of Prehistory and the Prehisto Parc in Tursac, 6km from Les Ezyes, children and child hearted adults will love the recreation of prehistoric scenes. http://www.prehistoparc.fr/
30km south by an attractive road and we reached La Roque Gageac, http://www.la-roque-gageac.com/gb/villages/RoqueGageac.htm a small town on the banks of the Dordogne River, which prehistoric interest are the troglodytic forts in the cliff face. Really a very very nice village to visit, but my question was ¿when to go to avoid the hordes of tourists? Answer: Early in the morning, have breakfast, (we arrived in the afternoon, nevertheless we bought some delicious croissants at Le Fournil Perigourdine, a tempting boulangerie & patisserie), tour a little and escape before lunch.
