out. I could have stayed

out. I could have stayed all night. Pech Merle (Cabrerets, Lot) Sealed up 12,000 years ago, and re-discovered in 1922, Pech Merle combines natural cave beauty (and rare cave pearls) and drawings, the oldest of which go back 30,000 years. Highlights include the 7m ‘black frieze’ of 25 animals, the wounded man, and a pair of extraordinary larger than life spotted horses, surrounded by yearning negative hand prints. Perhaps most moving are the footprints left by a child long, long ago. Engraved horse’s head Grotte de Font-de-Gaume (Les Eyzies), Sites préhistoriques de la vallée de la Vézère © Olivier Huard / Centre des Monuments Nationaux Font de Gaume (Les Eyzies, Dordogne) Just 22km down the Vézère River (UNESCO World Heritage’s ‘Valley of Prehistory’), this jewel was always open, but was only ‘discovered’ in 1901, after numerous other finds of bones and tools in local caves compelled ‘experts’ to admit that cave art wasn’t an elaborate hoax. In Font de Gaume, Magdalenian-era artists (14,000 BC) left a magnificent polychrome painted frieze of bison, along with horses and a unique, exquisitely tender scene, of a stag leaning over to lick a doe’s brow. It was a similar story at the Grotte de Combarelles - the caves are so close they even share the same ticket office— and the engravings of horses, bison, mammoths, and lions are exceptional. Vestiges of colour suggest these were painted, too, but only the engravings have survived. Panel of horses © Patrick Aventurier, Grotte Chauvet 2, Ardèche Niaux (Niaux, Ariège) High in a cliff, with an entrance marked by a spectacular steel prow, the most beautiful grotte ornée in the Pyrenees is another cave that was always open for centuries (hence the graffiti), until its art was ‘discovered’ in 1906. Nothing has changed since, and you’ll need to walk with a torch over uneven surface for 1.6km, passing black and red symbols that seem full of forgotten meaning. At the end is the superb, vaulted Salle Noir, which feels like a sanctuary, Grotte des Combarelles (Les Eyzies), Sites préhistoriques de la Vallée de la Vézère © Olivier Huard / Centre des monuments nationaux Chauvet (Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, Ardèche) In 1994, three amateur speleologists wiggled into a cave that had been sealed up by a rockslide 21,500 years ago and found ‘humanity’s oldest masterpiece,’ an astonishing 18,000 years older than Lascaux. Its Aurignacian-era artists filled it with herds of exquisitely depicted horses and lions (especially) but also rhinoceroses, bison, reindeer, and even an owl. Werner Herzog was allowed inside to film his 3-D Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) but that was it. But on a nearby hill, in a building that looks like a pie pan, you can visit the world’s largest cave replica, Chauvet 2. Book the last slot of the day, so you can linger until they throw you 54 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 55