Dordogne cave paintings- need advanced reservations?

It isn't necessary for Lascaux II which is a recreation and runs tours continuously in several languages. You should be able to get an English tour not too long after arrival.

The Font du Gaume is the best cave with natural paintings and is almost impossible to visit now. There are a very few reservations a day apparently that can be made by calling; look on the French language website. The other few tickets are given out each morning and people line up hours in advance.

If you can't get into Font du Gaume consider Roffignac which involves a trip in a small train underground. The paintings are interesting if not in the same league as Lascaux or Font du Gaume.

We reserved font de gaume ahead online. It is the original and not a reproduction as lascaux ll. we were pleased and it was easy and an enjoyable walk thru thecave with a guide. If uncan schedule it insuggest it. Enjoy. It is getting more an more diff to visit an original caves Soon it will be prohibiteddue to carbon dioxide emissions from humans visiting the cave..

When did you do this? We have done the Font du Gaume twice some years back and reserved ahead but recently they have been holding only a few tickets a day for reservation and they have been almost impossible to get. They only let 80 people in the cave a day now with most of the tickets given to those who line up the morning of the visit. Here is the statement of their current policy and the numbers of call:

"Font de Gaume in an attempt to slow the deterioration of the only original colour cave art examples left open to public in France, have made the decision this year to only issue the last two tours of the day in advance (one in French and the other in English). The only way to secure tickets in advance for this tour is to request places by email (fontdegaume@monuments-nationaux.fr) or by telephone on +33 (0)5 53 06 86 00 and hope that the small amount of tickets allocated to advance sales are still available. Otherwise tickets are only available by queuing on the day of your intended visit and an early arrival outside the ticket office is a must."

Each tour includes 9 people. I would telephone to try to reserve.

While Lascaux II is a recreation it is very much worth seeing as it is an extremely well done recreation using original techniques and materials and because Lascaux was protected from the elements unlike Font de Gaume the colors are vivid. Font de Gaume is pretty much black on black - still fabulous and it is just awe inspiring to see the real deal.

If you haven't seen 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' about the recently discovered Chauvet cave be sure to see that before you go. Chauvet will never be open to the public but they are also building a recreated cave like the one for Lascaux. I don't know when it will be ready for visits.

We, there were four of us, toured Font du Gaume in June but we made reservations in January. Last year there were notes on this forum that suggested writing in French to the French language web site requesting reservations. That's what I did. There were 12 people in our group and about that many in the group before us. We had an excellent guide and really enjoyed the cave.

You were lucky -- wasn't it a great site? We feel lucky to have discovered it before it became so well known and so we didn't have problems getting tickets.

Yes we loved it. Our landlord said there was another cave somewhere closer to Cenac that he liked but I didn't catch the name and we didn't have time to go there.

More Font-de-Gaume discussion and links to previous threads at https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/tickets-to-font-du-gaume-cave.

Hey,
Have I got a cave for you. Pech Merle. It is in the Dordogne region. You head north on the Lot River and then on to the Cele River. This drive is beautiful and you get away from the touristy stuff. This is the real thing, not a replica. And the cave itself is fantastic. Then throw in some of the most famous cave paintings and you really have something. The book and TV program The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski uses these paintings. They are in color. Some how we are led to belive that there are only a handful of these prehistoric cave painting locations. Not true.

We just showed up in late April and they had room on the next tour. I would try booking. We have visited six caves with prehistoric paintings. This was the best. Not to knock the great Spanish caves we say along the Bay of Biscayne, but Pech Merle is a pearl. And you will find getting there is so lovely, both the Lot and Cele are so much nicer than the Dordogne.

What the Dordogne has is a great collection of castles and vast vistas. But the road is big enough to handle tourist busses and they sure do flock there. The Lot and Cele are much more intimate.

wayne iNWI