The Perigreux region of France is known for its caves, and the prehistoric art found within. Most of the caves have limited entry numbers per day to preserve the artwork, and with tickets only available to purchase on the day, queues have been known to form from 7am. We had a couple of hours travel ahead of us to reach the general area. We were pleased to find one of the caves we were thinking of had a split sales time with afternoon tickets available from 2pm. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, and had no trouble - if anything we were probably too early.

The art from 16000 years ago was interesting. The cave we saw had drawings and sketches - mostly of woolly mammoths, some bison, ibex and horses and a few woolly rhinoceros (yes that is a real creature). The caves also had bear scratching and bear nests (shallow pits) where they hibernate - the bears were from a different era to the humans though so they never met.

We headed off to a place called Reignac Stronghold. There turned out to be two attractions here within 200m - a prehistoric park with full scale models of prehistoric animals, and a building in the side of the cliff. We split up and Darryl and April headed into the later while the rest of us checked out the park.

Darryl and April seemed to have made the best choice, with moving suits of armour that startled you, and an exhibit 101 ways to kill someone - a medieval torture chamber full of devices. The pre-historic park was interesting, but from the sounds of things not quite as exciting.

Having finished with the attractions we decided it was a good night to go out for dinner (our first dinner out in France!) We had passed a likely looking place 5 minutes before our last stop, so we drove back - but were unable to get a table without a reservation. The host was very nice and directed us to a village close by that had a number of restaurants. We headed there, and found only one restaurant open and we couldn't get a table there either. Back to the campervan and we rattled up a quick meal from our provisions rather annoyed that we weren't able to find anywhere to eat out.

Darryl: The Reginac stronghold was one of the best things I've seen in France - torture exhibit was a bit macabre.
The prehistoric art was pretty cool. There was also 300 year old graffiti in the cave

April: The torture exhibit was awesome.
Scott: I like my sabertooth tiger postcard because you can move it around and it's 3D.
Sarah: The mountain lions used to be 3.5metres high. The prehistoric cave drawings were cool.