Lascaux International Center of Parietal Art
Lascaux International Center of Parietal Art things to do, attractions, restaurants, events info and trip planning
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Lascaux 4 is a state of the art, 21st century museum and shows you the museum of the future. No tool available to the museum curators has been left unused, physical displayed, interactive displays, video, interactive digital displays, augmented reality, 3D movies, virtual reality etc. the way in which information is made available is literally without end. Lascaux 4 starts with a guided tour through the facsimile of the original cave, but unlike Lascaux 2 the whole cave has been recreated in astonishingly detail. At the start of the tour you are presented with a tablet and headphones which enable you to hear your guide through headphones which makes for a very pleasant experience. Guides are extremely knowledgeable, approachable and enthusiastic! After the extensive tour through the facsimile which is truly spectacular and worth alone the time and money, the real fun starts. In the exhibition space all parts of the Lascaux cave are pulled apart and the elements of the facsimile are present here to explore at your leisure. Here is where the tablet comes into its own right, it knows where you are and presents a multitude of options with each display item, painting or object. It allows you to interact with several displays and you can store pictures, informations etc and have it emailed to you after you leave the museum. The tablet allows augmented reality, recognising the paintings you look at and tells you more about them, view videos and in some instances has virtual reality available to view the rest of the original cave around you on the screen. The displays allowing you to recreate cave art yourself are quite fun and entertaining! The video halls are brilliant, although there 3D movie could do with some more editing or dramatic features, I am not entirely sure it accomplishes what it sets out to do. The virtual reality goggles allowing you to explore Lascaux are breathtaking and a stroke of genius. You can fly through the cave, explore the art up close. Go down the shaft or explore the felines which are otherwise impossible to see. In Lascaux 4 you see our creative past but it is also a display of our creative future, this is a museum of the future displaying what the human mind is capable of creating both now and 20000 years ago. Do not miss Lascaux 4, it doesn’t matter that it is a copy, you would never know, the imagery displayed are the original works and this way the real cave can be kept and preserved for the future. An exceptional museum that everyone should visit at least once!
Bas Olthof-Bakker
00
I have wanted to visit these paintings since I heard about them as a teenager. I can absolutely recommend a visit to Lascaux as one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Book online and book early because the best time slots fill up fast (particularly if you don’t speak French, I recommend a guided tour over the audio guided tour) Do not be deterred by the fact that it is a reconstruction of the original, it is highly faithful and the experience is like entering a true cavern, plus it is for the good of the original that they continue to do what they can to stop any further degradation of the art. As our tour guide said: the reconstruction is accurate to the millimeter compared to the original and is, in fact, closer to the cave as it was found in it’s original condition than the real cave is to it’s former self- due to the continuing fight against years of damage. My primary concern was that I was bringing along 2 small children (aged 6 and 9) and I thought they might become bored but I couldn’t have been more wrong. They were very engaged and interested and I didn’t once hear that they were bored! If there’s anything to critique it’s the AV portion of the tour with the tablets, while being very informative and rich, it suffers due to the fact that the tablets don’t always function as intended and that made my experience suffer because I had two children and an older adult with me who were constantly brining me their tablets because the audio wouldn’t play, or would play the incorrect information for their location, or they accidentally exited their screen and didn’t know how to get back to the correct one. I appreciate that I could experience the museum in my native language but I think the system needs some work. Overall in the scheme of things it was a minor annoyance at worst. A recommendation: it would be very interesting to have a portion of the museum dedicated to how the Lascaux IV reproduction was constructed. I found that I had as many questions about the museum as I had about the original cave! Maybe a little documentary shown in the cinema in rotation with the short film that currently plays in there?
Travis Cheramie
00
We recently did the combined tour of Lauscaux II and Lascaux IV. We choose the self guided tour of Lascaux IV which operates only across lunch time. We prefer this, so that we can go at our own pace and spend as much time as we like looking at particular sections. There is great technology on offer at Lascaux IV which tells you everything you need to know. It gets trickier to use in the interactive section, but staff wee happy to help us out. In Lascaux II we went on a French speaking tour (we don’t speak French) but we had enough understanding of what was being talked about from our previous visit to Lascaux IV and to Pech Merle the day before. The tour of Lascaux II is done in a more retro way. Some sections of the replica are conducted with a flame and others with a torch and infrared pointers. It gives you a more realistic impression of what the original cave would have been like when it was initially discovered. You can get a peek at the original cave site through a fence, but not really much to see. Doing the two caves was great for us, the high end version of IV combined with the more realistic version of II gives you a great perspective of the cave system. Would highly recommend doing these two together, but perhaps I would choose the English speaking tour at II if there was availability. Like most attractions in France, whilst there is a cafe on site, the kitchen seems to close at 3. You can only get light snacks after that.
Tracy Cerreto
00
We thought this would be a great visit for the adults and the kids would quickly become bored and do their usual ‘can we go’. How wrong we were; this was absolutely great, the (recreated) caves and art was excellent and the tour guide we had was really good with our group (English speaking group). The recreations were very good, at one point we did stop and ask ourselves if we were now in the real caves as opposed to the display ones - of course it was only the reproduction ones, but it’s that good. The art was interesting and the questions posed by the guide to provoke the thought process was a much better way of presenting the life and art of the period. It’s not just a museum. Whilst this isn’t a theme park and we thought the kids might get bored, they actually liked it a lot. The headsets helped a lot to hear the guide (which are part of the tour). Into the second part of the tour is the walking around of the reproductions with an interactive ‘iPad’ type device which allows you to see videos and VR displays - the kids loved this. The building itself is very impressive and you can tell they spent a lot of money to make it as worthwhile as possible, and they’ve done very well. I would highly recommend this as well worth a visit, it lets you see some history of the area and provided us with insights about living at that age that I hadn’t thought about previously.
JayCla80 JayCla80
20
This consists of a shortish guided tour around Lascaux IV followed by as much time as you like in the deconstructed caves activity centre. The dispalys are interactive but its worth asking for help to use the hand-held device they give you at the start of the activity centre. Some of our group rushed off and didnt understand what ot could do and missed loads. The visit was Interesting and had good interactive displays. Harder for little ones to grasp unless you are going to actively engage them in the tour. Parking was a nightmare, and we were 5 mins late for our tour despite being there in plenty of time. Fortunately, they let us join our tour late, but it was annoying to have missed the first part. I would allow at least 45 mins to 1 hour before your time slot to sort parking, walk to the venue and go to the loo! If you use the loos at the car park, you need to take toilet roll! Loos in the centre were clean and had toilet roll. The caves are very interesting and the earphones (to hear the guide and subsequent activities with translation) were excellent. You will need to stir up your own bit of excitement. The more you dig I to the activities and read/warch/listen to them, the more enjoyable it becomes but it is not a sit back and be entertained venue. We enjoyed it and would recommend, but you have to put a bit of effort into engaging with it.
Isabel Mackay Yau
00
I will admit... I knew beforehand that we would see a replica, and I know there is good reason why you can't visit the real thing (being an archaeologist myself I'm very happy that the original is being preserved) but still... While wow'ed by what I saw and learned I still felt like something was missing. But that's just the archaeologist in me pining. However, the Lascaux museum is a work of art itself. Being attributed with the newest forms of museum-experience I felt like a little kid in an amusement park. You get three completely different kind of experiences in one: the replica-caves, resulting in a life like experience. The information through plates and texts, a classic experience. And then the complete rebuilding and digital experience through tablets, camera's, and headsets. And when you're all done with that there are extra's as movies, putting together your own art exhibition, and visiting the older museums that are still open for business but not as advanced as the new one. Because of all this, Lascaux 4 is a place worth visiting again and again because everytime you learn something new and one can only wonder what they develop next. I did miss one cave though and am truly wondering why the cave with the big cats, that was shown on the 3D model, wasn't shown in the replica or in the digital experience...
Linda Leestemaker
10
Nearby Attractions Of Lascaux International Center of Parietal Art
Lascaux II
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Tourist Office of Montignac
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Nearby Restaurants Of Lascaux International Center of Parietal Art
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Learn more insights from Wanderboat AIBasic Info
Address
Avenue de Lascaux, 24290 Montignac-Lascaux, France
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Phone
+33 5 53 50 99 10
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Website
lascaux.fr
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Reviews
Overview
4.4
(6.8K reviews)
Ratings & Description
cultural
family friendly
accessibility
attractions: Lascaux II, Lascaux, The Regourdou, Tourist Office of Montignac, Pastels Girault, Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley, Grottes de lascaux, restaurants: Aux Berges de la Vézère, Noiret Nicolas- Le Triskell, LA PARENTHESE Restaurant et évènements, L’ANNEXE, Lunch Café, Le Tourny, Restaurant Café Lascaux, L'INATTENDU BAR RESTAURANT, restaurant de l'ours, Bar Les Arcades
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