It was a thrilling experience to be able to visit one of the Cro-Magnon caves and see some of the original cave paintings at Pech-Merle. We spent more than an hour in this cave and were excited to see these works of prehistoric art.

The first example we saw was this painting of a horse, some bison and a mammoth, part of a larger frieze. This black frieze is the pride of Peche Merle. It is a magnificent set of drawings done 16,000 years ago.

In this picture we see a mammoth and an auroch, an ancestor of our domestic cattle.

Thje artist here, in drawing the horse, took advantage of the natural rock formation to outline the head. This drawing has been dated at at about 24,500 years ago.

This is an outline of the artist's hand.

Here we can see the level of creativity of the artist, since by drawing just one line for the back he has taken advantage of the natural formation to "draw" a mammoth in natural relief.

The cave contains a dozen footprints, in two directions, of an adolescent boy. The authenticity of these prints is guaranteed by the fact that the prehistoric entrance was sealed off at the thawing of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 BC.

Although the paintings were the most interesting part of this tour, the cave itself was fascinating. One unusual aspect was the formation of "cave pearls." The water falls from an opening in the ceiling during heavy rainfalls.This intermittent waterfall carries with it sand and gravels. When these are trapped in small cavities in the pool, they are coated with calcite while they are polished by the action of the running water. More unusual is the "spinning-top".

For our tour of the caves, Margarite was a knowlegeable guide with a good sense of humor.

For more information on this cave, see the website at www.pechmerle.com.

Again, Patrick and Pamela had purchased the food for a picnic and some of the tour members helped in preparing it. There were salads and a number of kinds of meat, including local sausages.

Every picnic had a good selection of fruit and.of course, desserts.