Font-de-Gaume and other caves

They only let in sixty or eighty a day, so it's going to be hit or miss.

See if you can still get an email reservation from this (I think it's the interior ministry in Paris, but it used to work):

fontdegaume@monuments-nationaux.fr

They'll be able to read English. Just spell out the whole date rather than abbreviating it with only numerals.

Give them a choice of dates if you're able.

Thanks, Ed. I'll give it a shot, and let you know if it works out!

Google Font de Gaume -- Les Eyzies Tourist Info. Sorry, I don't know how to copy and paste a link from my smarter-than-I-am phone yet.

In a white band that comes up on the opening page it says that 80 people are allowed per day. The ticket office opens at 09:30 and they advise that you get in line early to get a ticket.

When we went, the number of people allowed in the cave at a time was about 12 plus the guide. You cannot take anything inside -- no purse or backpack or camera -- nothing. Whatever you have with you will be safely locked up in a niche beside the cave entrance.

Here's a thread on the topic I started back in February when we we making plans for a trip we just completed earlier this month. Diane provided great instructions and I was able to secure a reservation for my wife and I at 13h00 (in English) through the French web site. We were told by our hosts at Le Chevrefeuille that without reservations, it was best to be in line by about 7h30, but it may be earlier when you'll be there.

If you're also looking for a bed and breakfast, I recommend Le Chèvrefeuille highly. Our room was clean and spacious and we had an absolutely delicious dinner prepared by Chef Ian the night we stayed! For guests without reservations, they provide a thermos of coffee or tea and folding chairs for the wait in line. Another couple staying there mentioned touring a local truffle farm that sounded like fun and made us wish we'd allocated more time to the area.

I cannot give any up to date info regarding the booking process. However I can share with you that 8 years ago, we made a reservation about two weeks prior to the tour. It was an amazing experience and I highly recommend it.

Apparently now you can only make reservations on the french not the english website. There are only a handful allowed; the rest are allocated on site each morning.

We have visited twice and it is by far the best cave experience in the Dordogne; I feel really lucky to have seen it before it became so well known and overwhelmed by tourists. What stunning artists these people were 14K years ago.

Hey all,

I emailed upon Ed's recommendation, but sadly they are no longer accepting reservations. Thanks for the advice for getting there around 730, Jim, that's super helpful! I will update when we get back.

Thanks, all.

FYI It is possible to get reservations in advance at Pech Merle, which is perhaps 90 minutes from Sarlat. You can use their website. The tour was in French only but they provided laminated sheets of info so that we could follow along. Our guide was particularly good about making sure everyone in the group had enough time to get a clear view. The paintings were generally not as numerous or dense as those as Lascaux, but they were still amazing, and were original.

What an interesting thread for future reference. Thanks to ladyjendifi for the question and everyone else for the answers!

We were in Les Eyzies on June 15 and 16. We were able to get tickets for Font de Gaume for the first English tour. We understand that now only 50 tickets are given out each day beginning at 9:30am. We actually arrived about 7am to join a British gentleman that was already in "line" and just waited. Our tour started at 10 am. When we came out at about 10:45 folks were leaving that were unable to get a ticket so they went pretty fast.

Lascaux II was easy. Stopped by the ticket office and got a tour starting in an hour and half. And even though it is a reproduction it is quite wonderful and the tour was informative.

We stayed at the Cro Magnon Hotel and it was great! Couldn't resist the name.....

Pech Merle is just nothing like the Font du Gaume in artistic splendor. It is a lovely cave but has very few paintings besides the famous spotted horses. The paintings in the Font du Gaume are similar to those at Lascaux II although severely weather degraded so they are basically black on black. The gorgeous buffalo and such are not at Pech Merle.

Actually, it's bulls at Lascaux. The really good buffalo are at Altamira.

If you snoop around real good at Pech Merle you'll see depictions of mammoths, saber tooth cats, aliens, hands, pigs, and even a few bulls in addition to the horses, spotted and regular.

I stand corrected on the bulls with the big shoulders. But Pech Merle is just not close in terms of cave painting to Lascaux, Font du Gaume or even Roffigniac which is artistically less splendid but has some rather fine mastadons. to me Roffigniac looked like it had been painted/drawn by teenagers for an initiation. Most of it is quite primitive compared to the magnificent images in the Font du Gaume and Lascaux but the mastadons are relatively unusual to find and were clearly drawn. Pech Merle is worth a visit but it doesn't substitute for these other caves IMHO.

And of course, everyone with an interest in the Cro Magnon art should see the film by Werner Herzog 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' preferably in 3D. This is a recently discovered cave that will never be open to the public and is stunningly painted. Chauvet like Lascaux was sealed from the elements for millenia and so the images are fresh; keeping it sealed from the public is designed to preserve it so that the damage that occurred at Lascaux doesn't occur there.

We got in line for Font-de-Gaume at 8:45am on June 13th. By the time we got to the window, all of the English tours were sold out, and the 4 of us would have had to split amongst 3 separate tours. We decided to just take the 2 tickets that were together and my son and I went in. Fortunately, the tour ended up being mostly in English because that was the majority of the visitors anyway.

In any case, my advice would be to plant someone from your party in line as soon as you can to be sure that you get the tour that you want. Several groups ahead of us did exactly that.

We recently returned from this area and visited Pech Merle. They do offer English tours twice a day and I was able to reserve online. Tours are 25 people plus the guide. We all loved it! Having not been to FdG I have no basis for comparison but we thought the caves, paintings and the history supplied by the guide were well worth the drive.

The drive itself was like an E ticket ride. Single lane, curvy roads that were quite scary in our large van especially when meeting an on-coming car. I have told my family that only small groups will be allowed to return to the area if I am the driver.

I thought Peche Merle was far better than Font de Gaume, as did my husband. We went a few years ago and were able to get reservations for both. If you can only do one, I recommend Peche Merle. We did not go to any of the others, so can't compare.

I also rate Peche Merle much higher than the Font de Gaume cave. I mean, see them both by all means, but Pech Merle remains for me a peak experience of our trip to the area.

Reporting back as promised! We stayed at Hotel Cro-Magnon in Les Eyzies down the street (great little place!) and got to Font-de-Gaume around 7:30. We were not the first ones there, but pretty close, and were able to get in on the first English speaking tour which was at 10am.

This area of France was a big highlight of our French trip. We only stayed for a day, when I could have easily spent three. Thank you all for your input; you made a difference in our experience!