The retired traveller: May 1, 2019: Chauvet Cave, Pont d'Arc and the Gorges of the Ardeches

Happy May Day! For today's adventure we are headed an hour northwest of Sarrians to Chauvet Cave. Our jump off point is Vallon-Pont d'Arc.

Map of our route to the Gorges

The discovery of this cave in 1994 helped researchers re-think their theory that paleolithic cave painting started with simple drawings which evolved in complexity over the centuries. The dates of the sophisticated drawings and techniques in Chauvet show that some of these paintings were done long before scientists considered cave paintings to have become complex.

one of the cave paintings

You can see some photos of the cave paintings and exhibit areas at the official website of Chauvet 2.
If you are serious about paleolithic art and the Chauvet cave, this site from Don's maps is even more detailed.

This cave has never been opened to the public. An exact replica, Chauvet 2, similar to Lascaux, has been built about 10 km away, with attention to the popularity of such an attraction. There is plentiful parking and a set of spaces, both buildings and open air, that contain ticketing, bookstore, exhibits, classroom spaces, and a huge building with the exact replica of the most important sections of the cave.

bottom center is tickets and bookstore. Top circular building is the replica cave

With tickets booked in advance for an English tour, we showed up at 11:00 to begin.

This is the size of the building where the replica cave visit takes place. It is the circular building at the top of the photo above. (these are internet photos from the Chauvet website)

Tours leave every 5-15 minutes, so there are many groups in the cave exhibition area at one time. But before the tour starts we are given a headset that plugs into a small receiver which is set to the frequency of our guide's microphone. Thus, we only hear our guide and none of the ambient noise from other groups who might be as close as 50 meters away. It's amazing.

Our guide seemed more than just a guide. She was more a scientist, her passion and knowledge were that deep. And her English was excellent, her vocabulary both scientific and descriptive. While there were no photos allowed in the "cave," it was actually better as we concentrated on what we were seeing. And what we were seeing was amazing. Lions, rhinoceros, horses, hand prints and a couple of human figures.

Our guide helped us understand that caves such as Chauvet were special. They were never lived in. In fact, they were dangerous as cave bears wintered in this cave as evidenced by claw prints, nests, and occasionally bear bones. They also believe that only 4 different homo sapiens did all the drawings in the caves, prompting thoughts that there could be some mystical meaning to the paintings. She explained that no one really knows why men painted these walls, but that there is no question that their work was art. We left in awe. We know the caves are reproductions (exact in all ways possible), but for the time in the dark of the cave, we felt like we were in the real cave. There's a reason this is a UNESCO world heritage site (the real cave, that is).

From the belvedere of the Chauvet cave building, we had great views.

Lynn on belvedere over looking the valley below.

On the way out, we stopped to see an exhibition of lions in pre-history, which included a lion cub discovered perfectly preserved in a glacier in Russia.

Can you make out the parts of the 2-day old baby lion - fur, tail, ears, eyes, everything's there. No one knows how he died or ended up buried in the glacier.

Next task was to find a place for lunch.

Our roadside lunch. The Ardeche river is below us. So is the cap to Clark's thermos bottle.

We didn't find a park, but we did find a pull out as we started to climb the Gorges of the Ardeche from Vallon-Pont d'Arc (top left of map below).

This gorge is a steep calciferous canyon of 20ish miles through which the Ardeche river meanders.

the gorge is 20 miles long, but the actual road is longer with all its curves and switchbacks.

Since 1969, a road on the left bank of the river allows vehicular traffic to go from one end to the other. (There was no way to do that, except by river - which has rapids - before the road was built.

That little ribbon of open space near the top is our touristic road.

This touristic route sports many pull-offs so one can park and admire the view (and the long way to the bottom).

Judy and Janis on the side of the pull-off. The Ardeche river is below.... A long way below!

Drivers must never be looking at the scenery while driving or risk putting their car 1000 feet down the cliff face and land in the river.

This is the edge of the road - notice the blacktop and then a foot of gravely edge. The darker rocks are on the other side of the river from us. Yikes!

It is a spot for enthusiastic sporty types. You can canoe the river and enjoy many rapids. People hike down, or pull out their canoes to swim and sun on the rocky banks (doesn't look all that comfortable to me). Hiking and biking are also popular.

Lots of canoe rentals at the entrance to the Gorges, Vallon-

looking down on canoers and swimmers (they're on rocks near top of photo)

This is a non-telephoto version of the photo above. Those swimming are on rocks near the top. Can you find them? Smaller than ants.

You can understand why. The views are breathtaking. I feel like I'm overusing that word, but I don't know how else to describe the feeling of "Just wow!" I get from looking over the edge.

One geological point of interest is the Pont-d'Arc, a natural stone bridge connecting the cliffs on both sides of the river, the arch of which was carved many millennia ago by the river.

The Pont d'Arc on right

It's a big arch!

And it's cool from any angle.

It is actually here above the arch that the main entrance to the Chauvet cave was originally. It was sealed by a rock slide thousands of years ago. The point of entry in 1994 was a small hole nowhere near the original cave opening which was known to be a cave and was specifically sought out by a group of speleologists as a place to explore. Boy, were they surprised once they had shimmied through the opening on their bellies and climbed down ladders they had brought with them!

panorama of the cirque (where the river almost creates a circle)

Traveling the rest of the Route Touristique took the best part of the afternoon, even after skipping several of the spots Michelin told us to not miss.