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Font de Gaume reservation bummer

Posted by (PNW) on

For anyone interested, I compulsively tried to reserve a slot start of January as suggested for font de gaume this summer and got this response:

La bonne conservation de ce Site prestigieux et le maintien de son ouverture au public sont directement liés au nombre de visiteurs. Il importe donc, selon les conditions météorologiques, d’en moduler la limitation.
Les réservations pour 2018, ne seront plus effetuées.
Nous espérons, par cette information, avoir répondu à vos interrogations . Nous vous remercions de votre aimable compréhension qui contribue à la préservation de ce patrimoine culturel exceptionnel.

La mise en vente des billets se fera à 9H30 à la billetterie de Font de Gaume pour chaque jour dans la limite des places disponibles.

Thank heavens for google translate:
The good conservation of this prestigious site and the maintenance of its opening to the public are directly related to the number of visitors. It is therefore important, depending on weather conditions, to modulate the limitation.
Reservations for 2018 will no longer be effective.
We hope, by this information, to have answered your questions. We thank you for your kind understanding that contributes to the preservation of this exceptional cultural heritage.
 
Ticket sales will be at 9.30 am at the ticket office in Font de Gaume for each day, subject to availability.

So I guess we will probably just try to get there early and see what happens!

This is my first post on this forum and I get so much useful info from reading I figured I’d share what I learned too. :)

Posted by
1864 posts

I sent a request a few days before Christmas, asking for September tickets. I got the same response. I can't believe late September is already sold out. Perhaps they have decided to stop taking advance reservations?

Posted by
218 posts

Google doesn't always give the most correct translation of a particular word. I think the key phrase here is "...ne seront plus effetuées." Read that as "...will no longer be taken", or " accepted ". Sounds like the only access will be the line-up, with the number of tickets depending on the weather. My wife and I arrived about 8:45 on a rainy morning in September 2016, and sat on numbers 26 & 27 on the numbered benches. They still took reservations online at that time, but held some tickets for the day of. I think the numbers went up to about 50, and if you weren't sitting on a number when the attendant came out at 9:30, you didn't get a numbered card, which allowed you to buy a ticket (and by 9:30 there were lots of people standing around the door, all of whom were out of luck). Once the numbered cards were distributed, people were allowed to go in and book their timed tours according to their number- number 1 got their time of choice, and so on. There were a limited number of tours in English, and by the time we were called to the ticket booth, we had to settle for a tour at something like 2:30. So we visited other places (a car is essential) and came back in the afternoon. It was absolutely worth it! However, with the fragility of these paintings I'm not surprised that entry is becoming more limited. I would expect that it won't be long before there is no public access. The bottom line is get there early- bring your coffee and breakfast (an umbrella?) and picnic on a numbered seat. If the seats are all taken, come back tomorrow.

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