Caverne Chauvet--Pont d'Arc

We are very close to the Caverne Chauvet--Pont d'Arc in this picture 

My camera and iPad were charged. My backpack held a change of clothes. Elisabeth pulled her car up to my gite early that morning, and then we were off to get Marcienne and her daughter, Matilde, in Macon. We were heading south together.

Marcienne and Matilde helped the time pass with singing. They tried to teach me a song about the wind. I could remember the first line and then the second, but by the time they got to the third I was on overload and it all went out of my head!

Below is the crazy new building just south of Lyon where the Saone disappears into the Rhone River. 

Shortly after Marcienne took the wheel we were seeing olive trees. I wondered why we pulled into a small parking lot. Marcienne pointed to the olive trees in the nearby rotary and said it was so I could get a picture. Here it is!

We also passed fields of lavender. This would have been a spectacular picture if it was summer…

We began our ascent into cavern country…

…but we were too early for our tour through Caverne Chauvet so we continued on to find a place for a picnic lunch along the Ardeche River. 

The rock bridge below is famous. In prehistoric times the water would have been 16 meters higher.

In summer these clear waters are covered with people in kayaks and canoes.

The water is so clear that I spotted this hole in the sand from the same vantage point as the previous 2 pictures. My imagination wondered just where this went and the zoom lens helps show just how clean and clear the water is.

 All the campgrounds were closed for the winter. We parked at the entrance to one and carried our bags of food down to the river.

The nearby stones were wet and a cold wind was keeping the river company, so we found a warmer and dryer location for lunch. 

Matilde had made a delicious leek pie

It was one campsite after another all along this stretch of  river and each campsite had stacks of kayaks. Our campsite had two stacks! There are easily 200 kayaks in this stack… another row is beyond what the camera shows.

This was our view while having our lunch. Then it was time to pack, return everything to the car, and head for Caverne Chauvet, now called Caverne Pont d'Arc.

The Caverne requests that people arrive a half hour before their tour. It’s enough time to check in, find the bathroom, and then walk 10 minutes to the cavern replica. 

I had forgotten to bring my walking sticks, but Elisabeth had a cane and an umbrella. I felt a bit silly, but grateful. Our tour guide first asked if there were any foreigners in the group. She had earphones in lots of languages so I had an explanation in English as we walked through the cavern replica. 

No photography is allowed, but pictures really can’t do justice to what the eye takes in. Prehistoric man even used the contours of the cave to help bring the drawings to life. 

Nearest the cavern entrance are the red palm prints. Today’s scientists can tell when the same person was drawing in different places within the cave! One of those prehistoric persons had a bent pinkie finger. Some of the palm prints were done within an invisible outline of an animal. The pictures are 36,000 years old! 

Further into the cavern the drawings were done in charcoal. The walls are decorated with hundreds of animals from 14 different species. One section of the cavern wall was soft enough so an owl was engraved on the wall just by pressing with a finger. The pictures were preserved because 3 separate, small avalanches eventually sealed up the cave.

The final panel is 12 meters long with 92 animals. I found that I would look at a drawing, see a couple of animals, and then realize there was another animal in the drawing, and then another, and another….

There were about 20 people in our group and the tour lasted for an hour. If you can possibly visit, go! But don’t go in the summer. That’s when they have 50 people in each group and the tour is shortened to 45 minutes.

Having been through the replica, this book by the 3 people who actually discovered the cave became truly fascinating, even in French. There is an English version which Elisabeth has ordered for me!

We stopped at the cafe and had something to drink outside on the terrace. Then we walked to the Galerie De L’ Aurignacien where the pictures I’ve been posting were taken.

I would have liked to stay longer at the Galerie. There were lots of interactive exhibits and information to read about, but not a chair or bench in sight. My foot and ankle finally said "enough" so Matilde helped me locate the exit. At the entrance to this building there was a comfortable bench and a short video. I decided to rest there. When the video ended, doors would open into a movie theatre and a short movie about prehistoric life would play. When finished, more doors would open allowing entrance into the exhibit. 

I had told Elisabeth that I would be at the entrance, but she assumed that meant the entrance building where there was a boutique. It was starting to get dark so I went back into the Galerie. No one was there! Back outside there were security personnel about to close up the place. I checked the museum pamphlet to study its map and hobbled off in what I hoped was the right direction. As I entere the boutique I spotted Elisabeth at the cashier's counter. She had been asking if anyone had seen a lady with a cane and umbrella. We were both glad to find each other!