LE MOULIN SUR CÉLÉ An LE MOULIN SUR CÉLÉ An enchanting luxurious riverside retreat in the beautiful Célé Valley Experience la France Profonde www.lemoulinsurcele.com Sauliac-sur-Célé © Lot Tourisme, Teddy Verneuil West of Sauilac, after a series of tight bends, the Célé flows through Cabrerets to join the Lot on its journey to Cahors. Don’t carry on without visiting Pech Merle, a series of prehistoric painted caves that make the civilisation of Ancient Egypt look like a newcomer. This is my second visit, but I’m just as bowled over by the variety of the artwork, the geology of the caverns, and the story of how Paleolithic paintings were discovered in 1922 by three local teenagers. Some 800 motifs of various sizes and levels of completion decorate the walls, including more than 70 animals. Mammoths are the most popular subjects with 28 individual images but there are horses, bison, aurochs and even a lone bear. Human representations too including a wounded man and mysterious ‘bison-women’. The subterranean circuit stretches for around 600 metres with stairs between various levels, and expert guides ensure that visitors see the most important images, tracing some of the less distinct outlines with their laser pens. The experience is so vivid, so strangely in the Grotte du Pech Merle © Rémi Flament moment, that I find I’m constantly expecting to round a corner and find a Paleolithic painter hard at work with his red and black paints. I’m fascinated by the handprints, large and small, made by blowing powdered pigment at a palm placed on the wall, and by the Black Frieze depicting 25 animal figures on a 7-metre panel. But my imagination goes into overdrive as I look down on a child’s footprint, preserved for millennia in fossilised mud. Who was this young person and did he or she mischievously make those handprints whilst mum or dad was busy painting a mammoth? It’s all humbling stuff, guaranteed to stay in the mind long after you are back out in 21 st century daylight. And as I look at the vibrant frieze of spotted horses, a mere 29,000 years young, I can’t help wondering what Monsieur Champollion would have made of it all. Heads held high, the spotted equines trot proudly across the rock face into eternity, a snapshot of the past that even he would have struggled to decipher. Useful info: visit-occitanie.com/en; tourisme-figeac.com SELF-DRIVE BOATING HOLIDAYS NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE NEEDED! Brittany, Anjou, Charente, Lot, Aquitaine, Midi, Camargue, Loire Valley, Burgundy, Franche-Comté, Alsace 02392 401320 www.boat-renting-nicols.co.uk 34 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 35
