More painted caves!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Allo! Allo!

Oh, what a great day! Up around 7 a.m. (WHY can’t we sleep this late at home??) , showered and dressed and down to breakfast. The usual croissant and juice and coffee, and R says the coffee is weak, even though you can’t see the bottom of it!

As our first event of the day is the 1 p.m. tour of Grotte de Niaux, we had most of the morning to spend at leisure. Decided to take a drive into Ax-les-Bains, the local “spa” town about 25 km away from Tarascon, also on the Ariege river. (Didn’t want to go further than that, as we’ve read signage saying they were closing the main road after Ax from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.) Got to Ax with no problems, and then headed off into the town center. Really a lovely small city, and a major player in sports year-round. Besides the lovely spa facilities they have, there is a really large ski area, which in summer can be used for hiking trails and picnics and mountain biking. We decided to take the gondola lift half-way up – good thing, as that was WAY high enough for me! – and rather than walk back, we decided if we wanted to be in time at Niaux, we should also take the gondola back down. The Tour-de-France passed through Ax this past year, and it was interesting to see all the names painted on the roadways! We managed to get out of town fairly easily, leaving behind a HUGE traffic jam! (Not sure if they are stopping all traffic for those 5 hours, or if they are letting people through gradually, but the back up was incredible!)

From Ax we headed directly to Grotte de Niaux, which is located high up a mountain side just outside of Tarascon. As we still had some time before our tour, we decided to find sandwiches, and went to the “sandwicherie” outside of Grotte de Lombrives. There they made us great sandwiches of ham and cheese on baguette – the bread in this country is really amazing! Then we headed back to Grotte de Niaux.
The tour included about 12 people and the guide, and was truly amazing. We saw some of the most amazing cave art we’ve ever seen; lots of bison with the odd horse and aurochs thrown in. The detail in the animals was amazing – they drew in fur as well as hooves and faces. We were very impressed. And, as the tour was actually in English, that helped a great deal! Niaux is kept with very strict rules on the numbers of people allowed in during any one day; reminiscent of the state-owned caves of the Lot.

Tour ended about 3 and we headed next to Grotte de Vaches – but couldn’t FIND it! Parked in the right parking lot, and followed the signs – but couldn’t find it! Finally, after schlepping up hill and down dale for 20 minutes or so, we decided to head back…not happy, but very confused! From there we decided to try to get to Grotte de Lombrives (which we were going to do tomorrow morning). Arrived a few minutes before 3:30, which was when their next tour was beginning. Not a very good experience. The cave has no cave paintings – it is thought that they were dissolved by underground rivers. It is physically the largest cave in Europe, but is not being maintained well. The guide didn’t bother to tell people not to touch things, so believe me, they did; very disappointing. The main grotto itself stretches up hundreds of feet, and there are some good examples of some of the cave architecture that we’ve come to know. But they use the cave for concerts and all sorts of things, and while there is electricity in the cave, seeing was very difficult – and they did not pass out flashlights. We were both really surprised that they didn’t have more injuries, as it’s difficult to see in the darkness inside!

From Lombrives we headed back into town and our hotel…definitely in need of a lie-down! R caught up with some Caltech business, while I took a nap!
About 7 p.m. we decided to head out in search of dinner. We went along the main street to the Hostellerie de la Poste, which was actually serving dinner on Tuesday night! Had a lovely table next to the windows, which overlook the Ariege River. Started with Kir Royals; just delicious! We’ve decided that the next time we’re in these parts, we will try the Hostellerie, as it looks really nice! We both ordered one of their set dinners, each of us having separate pieces. My dinner started out with a salad of potatoes, croutons and lardons (pieces of bacon). It was served warm like German potato salad, and it was absolutely incredible! R’s starter was a salad with chevre chaud (warm goat cheese) – it looked really good, but my salad was amazing! R’s main course was duck breast with potatoes. My main was a slice of steak with a shallot sauce – again, fantastic! We were let down by desserts, though – mine was a white cheese with red fruits – but looked actually like liquid cream cheese with apricot preserves on top! R had a baked apple with honey, which he said was fine…would have preferred it to be maple syrup! Things were really dragging by this time, so I walked back to the hotel myself to get started on the blog, and R followed up when the bill (finally) arrived. Once again, a 2 hour+ meal. Don’t usually mind, but tonight I’m exhausted, so will close now and try and get this posted!

Much love,
m
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