The South West of France is easy to combine with Spain and, as all our tours are private, we can happily customize any of our Spain and France Food, Wine and Cultural Tours to include the Dordogne region of France for you. Staying within the triangle of Perigueux, Bergerac and Sarlat, you will be able to explore the beautiful Dordogne region of France on a Gourmand Breaks Private Tour Itinerary. The cave was in fact discovered by four young boys in September 1940. The area is perhaps most famous for, amongst other things, its gourmet delights. The heart of the Dordogne is centred around the city and prefecture of Perogueux. The main cavern is a fairy grotto but never enters out into a large space – it is more of a winding pàssage with thousands of tiny and small stalactites on either side clinging to the ceilings and crystallized rivers of calcified rock running down the walls. Visiting Dordognes Ice Age Caves with Children - Archaeology Travel Tips for Visiting the Dordogne’s Ice Age Caves with Children The World famous cave of Lascaux with the huge and dramatic paintings of bulls has been captivating children ever since it was discovered. An area of natural beauty, rolling hills, old villages, castles and small country towns that are ripe to be explored and enjoyed by all who pass through or visit. It contains amazing stalactites and stalagmites. The Grotte du Grand Roc, just a few kilometers from the town of Les Eyzies, is a marvellous natural cave located half way up a cliff face above the Vezere river. Today a number of excavated caves and grottoes are open for public viewing. prehistoric peoples created astonishing cave paintings and this tour allows you to see this fascinating art with your own eyes and learn. Early Homo sapiens lived about 40,000 years ago, and skeletal remains of Cro-Magnon man were first found here in 1868. The town of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac sits comfortably under a limestone cliff and is the doorway to the prehistoric capital of France. Apart from a small brook, running along the deepest galleries, most of the network is totally fossil with friezes of woolly rhinos, engravings of mammoths and hollows scratched out by hibernating bears. It is a development of about eight kilometers of galleries on three levels – some are ten meters high, others just 12 meters wide.
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The Grotte de Rouffignac is one of the largest caves in the region. In its 2 galleries the same paintings, same techniques and same pigments have been meticulously reproduced to enable everybody to discover the prehistoric masterpieces. However, a replica cave has been built nearby, Lascaux II, and is open to visit. The original cave has been closed to the public for more than 50 years and is now under close surveillance in order to preserve it.
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The most important caves in France are here, located near the village of Montignac, called the Lascaux caves. The Dordogne region of France has literally hundreds of caves, many of them open to visit.