Another cave art day today. We visited the cave at Cougnac. Actually there are two caves at Cougnac. One with prehistoric paintings and one famous for its stalactites.

The French government forbids photos in the paintings cave so I copied these off the internet.

These paintings are 30,000 years old.

There were also a couple of things that had been dated at 14,000 years ago. (Using carbon dating)

Thats 16,000 years between the two sets!!

We have discovered that 12,000BC means 14,000 years ago but 12,000BP means 12,000 years ago as the letters BP stand for ‘before present’. With numbers as big as these though the difference seems a bit academic!

What drove these people to crawl 100 metres in the dark with a flickering flame to the far recesses of caves to draw these animals? There are no pictures of people or plants or countryside or even the reindeer that was a staple food for them. What a tantalising mystery.

What other caves are waiting to be discovered?

The other cave with the stalactites allowed photography.

These very slender stalactites are hollow! There were drips of water on the end of them. It takes fifty years for the water to percolate through the limestone and emerge!

After the caves we went to Domme and viewed the Dordogne over a cup of coffee.

It is another of those Plus Belles Villages.

Back in Sarlat, after dinner we had a gentle saunter through the town. It seems too pretty to be real!

And on the way back to our beds we passed this lovely door.

I like doors.