July 19 - Visit to the Prehistoric Cave

Monday, July 19 – Visit to the Prehistoric Cave

On Monday we headed to Pesche Merle, a cave with prehistoric cave paintings from 25,000 years ago. I visited it about 10 years ago and wanted to see if it was as wonderful as I remembered. Well the answer was yes and no.

First of all the drive was way too long to try to do as a day trip. The TomTom said it was three hours but it turned out to be four, even though I made only one tiny mistake on the way and stopped for a quick refueling. We were supposed to be there at 1:00 but got there at 2:00. We drove on the peage (paid freeway) going there and so didn’t get to see anything very exciting other than Carcassone from a distance.

We were hustled into a waiting room for our tour. We knew that the tour would be in French and that English booklets were provided. They would only give us one to share – which was also a little annoying. Then our tour guide (a middle-aged man with a bit of a paunch) started the introduction. He was quite emotional but we had no idea of what he was saying. Then he opened the door to the cave and we entered down about 30 stairs and then a long hallway. The cave was truly beautiful with stalagtites and stalagmites, and eerie shapes everywhere. Then we saw the first paintings. The paintings are in black charcoal and red ochre. They are mostly animals (bison, bear, deer) but also there are human hands and a couple human shapes. They are not like the hieroglyphic type of drawings you usually see by primitive people – instead they are much more realistic and even show animals in motion poses. As we would approach a cave painting the guide would call us in close and he would then highlight various features with his laser pointer and go on and on in French saying stuff we couldn’t understand other than “head” “back” etc. We became aware that a member of the group reeked strongly of alcohol and probably cigarettes. I’m sure I was looking somewhat bewildered (due to the fact that I couldn’t understand anything) the guide motioned me over to him to give me more personal information. I was then very much aware that the alcohol odor was coming from no other than from our guide, who also was getting overly physically familiar with me – it is very hard to tell someone to “knock it off” when you don’t speak their language. Therefore, I spent the rest of the tour trying to avoid the guide but this was rather impossible. At the end of the tour he followed me out of the museum to “show me a tree in the parking lot” – I am not making this up. It was truly bizarre.

We then had to face the prospect of a four-hour drive home. Not pretty. Just as we left the cave area we came upon a potter’s studio and shop and it was the best we’ve seen anywhere. Both of us bought a bowl.

We took a more scenic drive home and it was much better. The only real mistake we made was stopping in Cahors for lunch – the food was bad in the place we chose and the town did not seem to have anything interesting to see. The best part of the drive home was getting on the peage towards the end of the drive – a very new freeway that is rather a work of design/art and includes the most beautiful bridge I’ve ever seen. I couldn't take a picture of it since it was dark and I was driving but I will try to find it on the web.
Here it is: http://www.leviaducdemillau.com/english/index.html