More adventures in the beautiful Dordogne.

I know, I know. Many of you are looking at the dates and thinking I won't end up finishing what I've started here. Well, I will! So there. I had expected to get caught up in the Dordogne but the dodgy internet was a killer. Some days it didn't work at all. Gijs tells me some time ago the French government mandated minimum ADSL speeds for every French citizen. He also says in practice little has changed in remote areas. Gijs and Karen get their internet though a satellite connection that is quite flaky. Oh well. I will finish!

Thursday (July 13) we decided we weren't quite done spelunking. We had seen the cliff caves that people had fortified and lived in through the middle ages and later. We wanted something more ancient and interesting for different reasons, so we went to Les Grottes de Cougnac about 20 minutes away from Lagrenie. There are actually 2 caves at Cougnac, the first is interesting for its geology and the second for its archeology. You have to take the guided tour which in this case was in French, but I think we caught the main points and the guide was happy to answer questions in English for us.

The first set of caverns have ceiling areas full of thousands of stalactites, some as thin as a drop of water. There are also numerous stalagmites, columns and curtains as well. It was spectacular. I'm afraid my pictures don't really do it justice. I assume the pictures in the book and on the website are done professionally with proper lighting? You can check them out. There is also how I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to photography in abnormal settings. 

Sorry. Nothing in there for scale. This is one of the cavern areas we walked
through though. I didn't have to crouch.

Another cavern area we walked through.

A curtain. Again, no scale. It hung down around 5 inches from the ceiling.

A plethora of stalactites. Quite delicate looking. Of course we were forbidden
from touching anything in any of the caverns.

After the geology cavern, we headed for the archeology cavern. We were forbidden from not only touching anything in this one, but also couldn't take photos either. If I understood correctly, the deeper parts of the cave with the paintings were discovered in the late 40's and early 50's. Prior to that, the entrance area which was a fairly large and open cave, had been walled in and used as a cellar by the family who lived in the farmhouse above. The family had never bothered to explore beyond the large open area (I guess they didn't have kids!).

There is evidence showing that Neanderthals used the entrance shelter area some 50 000 years ago but, much like the farmers who came later, had not gone into the next caverns. The opening is narrow but I'm fairly sure our guide said they haven't been widened to what they are like now. Maybe the Neanderthals didn't have kids who went exploring either. Later on, between 30 000 and 18 000 years ago, people came and drew on the walls in the deeper caverns. There is no evidence that they lived in the inner caverns or the outer shelter but evidence suggests they actually lived a few kilometres away. Archaeologists believe the Cougnac caves were at that point viewed as a sanctuary or shrine of sorts and were possibly used for ceremonies.

Bear with me. The reason I'm putting in all this boring info leads up the the part that I somehow found the most intriguing once I understood what the guide was telling us. Dating of the cave paintings as well as bits of tools and part of a stone lamp shows that people came and went, adding to the paintings here and there, maybe using the cave for ceremonies of some kind, over a period of more than 10 000 years. So at some point 30 000 years ago, someone came and drew a couple of animals or some of the geometrical shapes. A thousand or more years later, someone else added their tag, and so on. The entire tableau is a result of each groups successive additions.

Pictures from the internet. I followed the rules and did not take any myself.

An ibex.

A megaloceros (extinct member of the deer family). There is also a wounded
man with 3 spears sticking out of the back side of the body. Another interesting
thing the guide pointed out is how in a number of places the artist used the
natural shape of the rock surface to accentuate parts of the animal. 

The second "wounded man" drawing done with drawings of a mammoth.

After doing bit of reading, I wonder how long it will be before people aren't allowed in to see the drawings at all. There is a cave called the Lascaux cave not far away in the same region. It was discovered in the early 40's and opened to the public 8 years later. By 1956 it was closed again when it was noted that a growth of algae on the cave walls was damaging the paintings. The algae was deemed to be a result of exhalations, humidity, and other contaminants introduced by visitors. Subsequent cleaning damaged the paintings further and, despite the closure, they still struggle to control various fungi in the caverns. An exact replica of the main cavern has been built since for visitation, but somehow I don't think it would be the same as seeing the originals. I suspect Cougnac receives a small fraction of the 1200 people per day that were visiting Lascaux, but it would be a shame if we were damaging the paintings by viewing them.

After our morning cave adventure we headed to Domme, a fortified medieval town perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Dordogne river. I'm sure you're getting bored so I'll keep the narrative shorter here. I only have one bit of history to put in, and that is that in 1307 a group of Knights Templar were imprisoned in one of the two towers flanking the entrance gate. The Knights left various "graffiti" on the interior walls of the towers...none of which I took pictures of for some reason. I have pictures of the towers though!

Templar graffiti. Thank you again, Internet!

Les tours. The knights were in the one on the right.

The towers from the inside once we had breached the walls. So not really towers
in my opinion. More like half towers as they are only round on the outside. 

The Templar Pizzeria. I was outvoted on going there.

The view from on high in Domme was spectacular. 

Looking one way.

Looking the other way.

Dunc and Clara show off their skull necklaces.

In this case, Toutes Directions would apparently take you past Alex's Pub.
I was outvoted again.

Dunc and Clara took advantage of the medieval playground in Domme.

At this point we were beginning to see the Petit Trains as something of an
infestation. I'm glad we got it out of the way back in La Baule. Later we
found they even had one in Neuchatel.

After our visit to Domme we headed home in an overland Louise type of way for a quiet dinner. 

What passes for a traffic jam in Groléjac. Two big trucks were trying to
pas each other near the corner.