Although today was a travel day, from Carcassonne northwest to Beynac in the Dordogne region, the total point-to-point travel time was less than 3.5 hours. We made a few detours along the way and saw some amazing sights, not least of which were 25,000 year old prehistoric cave paintings.
We were able to connect Carcassonne and Beynac by traveling through the Lot River Valley, a beautiful area and home of Le Grotte du Pech Merle, where we saw fantastic cave paintings of mammoth, bison, and horses. Usually you need reservations for these prehistoric cave tours and I had tried to make reservations for another cave before we left and was told they were sold out, so I wasn't optimistic that we were going to be able to see the paintings at Pech Merle. The cave is @ an hour detour off the autoroute and is in an area that isn't as widely traveled as the other cave we had wanted to visit. Much to our surprise we were able to get tickets immediately for a tour. It was definitely worth the hour detour!
On our way back to the autoroute we stopped at a little town called St. Cirq Lapopie, which is built on a ledge overlooking the Lot River. Awesome views and a cute, quaint town. Wish we had had time to make the hike down to the Lot River, but by this time it was 3:30 and we still had at least an hour's drive to go.
After checking into our B&B outside Beynac, we drove into Sarlat and spent the evening there. I wish I could say we spent it sightseeing, but a good 1.5 hours were spent inside a laundromat. By the time we finished our laundry it was 9:00, both of us were starving, but neither one of us wanted anything very heavy, so we decided on crepes for dessert at an outdoor cafe in Sarlat. What a very French way to end our day!
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