At Lascaux, you can no longer go into the actual cave where the paintings are, the exposure to air and the the diseases brought in by visitors having a detrimental impact on the paintings. However, you can take a tour of Lascaux II, which is a reproduction of the cave where the paintings are located. I wasn't optimistic, but it turned out to be pretty good. Apparently it took about 10 years to construct the replica cave, including 5 years for one woman to reproduce the paintings. Probably nearly as good as the real thing. It's quite exciting seeing the cave paintings, albiet reproductions, that I learnt about in history in school when I was 12.
After Lascaux, we moseyed along to Font de Gaume, another cave with prehistoric paintings. Unlike Lascaux, and although not as spectacular, these were the real deal. The cave paintings here date from 16,000 years ago.
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