rouffignac cave

I'm very interested in history and love seeing the real thing, so I really enjoyed going deep into a cave and seeing actual prehistoric drawings done by ice-age hunters. The drawing themselves are quite impressive as artworks even if you ignore their age. While they are just black lines on light stone, but the animals have a sense of life and immediacy to them.As the other reviewers say, it's a long ride and a short time looking, so how much you get out of visiting the cave depends on how interested you are in the subject. For me, this was a highlight of my trip to France, right up there with La Sainte Chapelle and the Van Goghs at the Orsay.

This large decorated cave allows visitors to view the original drawings of pre-historic man. You travel into the cave via a small "railway" and the drawings are only illuminated as you approach them. This is to preserve the integrity of the drawings and minimize the impact of the many visitors who tour this cave. For this reason, as well, the number of visitors are limited and the one hour tours are scheduled. I would imagine that it would be best to get there well before the first tour of the morning or the afternoon. We were there in October and we only had a short wait. The guided tour is in French but there are viseo-guides in 10 languages. We also found that our guide made an effort to answer our questions in English.

In beautiful countryside, the cave itself was awesome. Electric train takes you on tour deep underground, stopping at cave drawings. These looked ho-hum on the computer screen at home, but in person had a special feeling, like being close to someone from 13000 years ago. Our particular tour was all French, but the guide gave us an interesting quick explanation in English of some points. We really liked it.

I had wanted to visit a "real" cave to complement the visit to Lascaux II. We chose this as the least complicated and easiest to visit. (Others seemed to demand standing in line at an early hour on the chance you might get in.) It was interesting to see the line drawings created so many thousands of years ago by our ancestors, and the guide did a good job of supplementing the audio resources.

I thought about giving this turkey two stars. However, there are some amazing 13,000-year-old drawings that are worth seeing. If there were a way to see these drawings in a 20 minute stretch, I would recommend it highly. Unfortunately the only way to see them is as part of an hour long train ride accompanied by a French monologue. There are no English tours, and the provided "tour guide" encompasses about 1 1/2 pages total. A 40 minute tour of Lascaux is more interesting, more informative, and has more amazing cave paintings. I can recommend Rouffignac only to those people who have extra time.

We only had time to visit one cave and were able to get into this one easily in late morning. It's a stunner. The open little train takes one deep inside the cave. I was shocked at how far the art was from the opening, and how it could have been created by the light of smokey fires . There are lots of animal drawings, more than I expected, beautifully integrated into the rock walls, using the rock texture to augment the artist's renderings. Truly mind-blowing to see. If you have to wait for the next train, there is a restroom, gift shop, no cafe.

We arrived just before 4pm and were afraid we would be too late to experience this tour as it closed at 5pm. However, a coach party had booked and were were asked if we would like to wait and get the last train at 5pm. This gave us ample time to read the ipod guide in English (cost 1.5 euro) ahead of the train trip. They didn't try and sell us two but said we could share. Be warned, you go deep into the caves and it is cold, so dress appropriately. We had a fleece blanket in the car which came in very useful! There were only 8 people on our tour. Although the tour was predominately in French, our guide spoke a little English and he made sure we understood what we were looking at, pointing out individual paintings and animals scratched into the cave sides. The little train travels though multiple bear pits made by Cave Bears. There are paintings along the sides of the caves and the train stops frequently to allow good views. We were able to get off the train and stand surrounded by cave art; bison, ibex, mammoths, woolly rhinos, all depicted on the walls and all over the ceiling. It was brilliant. Even though we were the last tour of the day, our guide did not rush us out and we in fact took about an hour and a quarter to return back to the start. Our most enjoyable cave visit.

This was our first time seeing ancient cave drawings in Europe and we were impressed. We arrived, bought our tickets and were able to board the train through the cave within 10 minutes. The guides only speak French So if you need to listen in another language, purchase the electronic guide for 1.5 euros. It was very informative. It is mind boggling to imagine seeing art that was made over 12,000 years ago. How could you not be impressed.

We went here after visiting three prehistoric sites with cave art, this was therefore much later in history and very different. I had hoped for a couple of reconstructed dwellings but was to be disappointed, having said that it was well worh seeing for the fabulous views alone.

We arrived at 1200 only to be told we could only get on the last train into the caves which was 1730 making us think that this must be a wonderful experience being so popular. How wrong can you get! We booked it and then had several hours to kill in a region without much else.If you could book and turn up thirty minutes before it probably would have been ok but for the length of our drive to get there it wasn't. If they kept going through 12-1400 maybe people wouldn't have to wait so long but that would mean staggering their lunch hours, Sacrebleu !Everything is in French so if you don't speak it fluently don't bother. You can rent an ipad leaving your driving licence as collateral with a written guide but then you don't look at the caves because you're reading..The artwork is ok and when I pointed out something to my son the guide let rip in French thinking I had touched his precious ceiling that by the way had graffiti on from the 1950's.All in all don't bother unless you want to waste a day..

We were advised at our accommodation to go early for the 10am start of this little train journey inside the caves of Rouffignac. So, this we did - arriving just at the small electric train was about to leave. We invested 1.5 Eu in the handheld English tour device (which worked a treat) and off we went 1km inside the most remarkable cave system. Yes, the tour was entirely in French but it was clear and obvious what we were looking at. Basically, we were shown where bears had built 'nests' (dozens of them) where they hibernated in pre-historic times...and further into the caves the wall art of primitive man! Bison, mammoth, ibex - drawn all those years ago. Just fascinating. Well worth a trip - just make sure you get there early enough.

This leaves you with many unanswered questions about early man.First, it is cold in the cave so bring a jacket and wear some warmer pants if at all possible. I wore shorts and a light rain jacket. It wasn't warm enough.There is a trolley/'train ' that takes you way down into the cave depths. It is very dark lit by the trolley lights. The guide spoke English with a thick French accent so we had to listen carefully. He was very good and explained the cave art skillfully. The drawings are very fascinating and very good considering where they are located and what the artist had to deal with, in terms of tools and location. I would probably not go back again, but do not at all regret going this first time. It is all part of why you come to this region of France for in the first place.

We made sure we arrived at the site early, before it opened to be sure of getting a seat on the first train. We visited on 1st September, so the schedule had changed for 9:30 start to 10:00am start. There are some informative boards in the entrance cavern but the English is limited. You can get an English digital tour guide which is text for the main sections of the tour plus some FAQs and answers. The electric train holds about 30 persons in 3 person seats. The tour goes deep into the cave through unlit passages with very close clearances to walls and roof in some places (maybe not for the claustrophobic!). Would have given this a 5 except for the fact that the French guide spoke at least 7-10 times more information than we got on our text tours, and even our French speaker had trouble following him. For the one time he spoke English it still sounded like very fast French! The cave art is stunning in its quality and quantity. It is amazing to think that early man delved so deep into the cave to draw such magnificent representations which were obviously not meant for general viewing. This facility cries out for audio guides in various languages to match the obvious enthusiasm and expansive descriptions of the live French guide. Bring some warm clothes as it gets quite cool in the cave even when very warm outside.

Poor service let down what might have been an good visit.Hard to say as we weren't allowed in as they had 550 visitors that day and at 1630 didn't feel like letting any more in!Discussing this bizarre behaviour with others showed this not to be an isolated incident either. Others experience the same and varied levels of customer dis-satisfaction.Bit of a let down and one we chose to avoid the next opportunity we had to visit something. Ah well. :)

We visited late August, so had to wait an hour for the next available visit. Well worth the wait.As the small electric train decends into the cave system you can see how underground rivers carved out the passageways, creating domes where whirlpools formed. Next, the guide pointed out bear claw scratches on the walls. Then we reached a section with mammoth drawings on the wall - beautiful and haunting to think how far from the entrance an artist had come over 12 thousand years ago. Finally, we got off the train to look at dozens of animals drawn on the ceiling if a cavern.As you would expect in a cave, it is chilly so bring suitable clothing. There is no cafe, though there is a small shop, so bring something to occupy yiur waiting time. The guide speaks only french, but you can rent an English translation "visi-guide".A fascinating glimpse of art not seen for thousands of years, and arguably not created to be seen.