France
Our tour group collectively cranes their necks to study these 13000-yearold paintings gracing the cave’ s ceiling. We are in Grotte de Rouffignac, just south of Périgueux in the Dordogne area of southwestern France. In this region of dark forests, winding rivers, and rolling hills, inhabitants from prehistoric Cro-Magnons onward created decorated caves, gas lit towns and gardens. For modern day travelers like my husband and I, dawdling through these sites perfectly fill our days in the Dordogne.
On a gray rainy day, we agree that going into a cool, damp cave is an ideal alternative to getting wet above ground. We almost miss Rouffignac’ s unassuming entrance in the woods and are soon on a little electric train whirring off into
Grotte de Rouffignac entrance
the darkness. The guide highlights large, round hollows in the rock where cave bears denned for the winters as well as the long scratches on the walls left from sharpening their claws. The bears were long gone before early man, using tallow lamps, created his art in these galleries and passages. Spotlights dance over paintings of bison, horses, ibex, wooly rhinoceros, and what this Grotte is famous for, multitudes of mammoths. There are single animals and groups. Some were engraved with chisels or, on some softer surfaces, with fingers; others were outlined in black. Using the curved surfaces of the cave and strong simple lines, the prehistoric artists captured the beasts’ enormity, power and shagginess.
The anatomical correctness of the mammoth drawings vouches for their authenticity, the guide explains. Until modern researchers studied frozen mammoths in Siberia, only people who lived amongst these animals could have drawn them with such exacting detail. Why Cro-Magnons ventured so far into this cave to make these paintings is unclear. In this, and many other caves throughout the region, our antecedents left powerful depictions of the animals populating their world.
Fast-forward many millennia to when Dordogne residents were not painting on rock but building with it. Sarlat-la-Canéda is a bustling market town with a wonderfully preserved medieval centre. Narrow cobblestone lanes wind between golden stone buildings with black slate roofs. Many of the ground floor buildings date from the 13th century, while distinctively styled Renaissance houses were added in the 15th century. At night warm, glowing gaslights bring out the fine architectural details and highlight cheery flower boxes on mullioned windows. On a casual ramble through the maze of streets leading away from the main square, my husband and I savour the atmospheric ambience. The bronze geese in“ Goose Square” pay homage to one of the regional specialties, foie gras. We pass animated patrons at sidewalk restaurant tables and their jolly noise echoes down a deserted walkway presided over by leering gargoyles. Tomorrow, these streets
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