Grotte de Font-de-Gaume — Attraction in Sarlat-la-Canéda

We scheduled and purchased tickets on September 25, 2024 for the English language tours on October 21, 2024 for the Grotto des Combarelles and Grotto Font-de-Gaume through the website that manages both historic properties. The only English tours available were timed close together but as the sites were located only 2 kilometers apart it was theoretically possible. Combarelles was first and there were 7 individuals (3 Germans, 2 Scots, & 2 Americans) on this tour, all of which were also scheduled for the tour at Font-de-Gaume. The Combarelles tour started late and subsequently ran about 10 minutes over, but we all arrived at Font-de-Gaume five minutes before the scheduled tour. A woman who worked at the site met us in the parking area and told us we should have arrived 30 minutes earlier and we only had 5 minutes to make the tour. We immediately entered the office and were then told it was too late. Apparently the tour guide had left the office early with only 5 of the 12 individuals scheduled. The personnel at Font-de-Gaume were unnecessarily rude and said all remaining tours were sold out through September of 2025. Even though we were delayed at the affiliated site, it was clear that the personnel took no responsibility for the guide starting the tour before the scheduled time with less than half the group. No refund was offered or provided. We found another cave in the area to visit (Grotto de Cougnac) which was lovely and had some fine examples of Paleolithic art. However, the best English language cave tour we had was of Pech Merle which we...

Amazing and worth getting to Ezyies!

We did a side step on a trip to Paris which took two travel days but was worth it!

We saw like 20 or so paintings on the wall including a negative hand stencil, different bison, cows, horses and the mysterious tectiforms (my personal favourite)!

The tour guides english was fine, he got the points across but his passion shone through the most.

The walk inside was comfortable and well lit. I can get claustrophobic but I quickly got used to it after a few minutes.

The tour was about 30-40min long total

I had a jacket on and a scarf and the temperature inside was actually warmer than outside!

BIGGEST point is they're the original cave drawings! Not replicas! They include graffiti over top from years of random people entering.

I wish we could've seen more so we got an 11am English tour here and a 2pm French tour at Combarelle and that was amazing.

Overall it was great!

Eyzies: Finding a hotel in the off season (late Nov) is tough on the same day. Good to book it in advance. Check if they don't open til 730pm-we arrived with a our stuff but couldn't put our bags away but a nice lady in a cafe let us stow them there

It's walkable to the Grotte do Gaume (20-25min from town) and also to the Grotte de Combarelles (30-35min walk one way) but not to the third one down the road (arc something?) We didn't bother...

The Font-de-Gaume cave is well worth the effort. We went on Sunday, 2 October arriving around 8:00 and were 11th and 12th in line (there are 12 people per tour). Between our arrival and the opening at 9:30 only a handful of people came. As mentioned by other reviewers, when you arrive there is numbered seating to help with organisation, however it is not covered so you’re quite exposed in poor weather – be prepared! We were lucky to be on the first tour at 10:00 which was delivered in English. Our guide was very good and clearly passionate about the site. She showed us all the paintings, which are open to the public, and provided some significance and in some cases interpretation. We had previously gone to Lascaux II which was very helpful in appreciating the Font de Gaume images. We later went to Rouffinac which was again useful for context setting. If this interests you I would recommend all three caves as they are all very different with complementary information. Since it is one of the last of its kind open to the public, and may someday close as well, Font-de-Gaume is a really special experience. My only caveat would be that you do need a bit of imagination to appreciate the significance of the images and some research on the age of the paintings, and the painters themselves, before going is helpful (again this is where Lascaux II is a...