Rouffignac Cave — Local services in Sarlat-la-Canéda

Very intriguing cave paintings and nice to see a different type of cave from the usual wet limestone caves. Very few stalactites here as the water diverted a long time ago, and aside from a few interesting rock formations it is almost all about the cave art. Much of the trip is dark lit, barely lit with the guide picking features out with a torch. Don’t expect to see dramatic lighting or exciting rock formations. However still worth a visit as the paintings are interesting and well worth seeing.

The guide speaks entirely in French (except for brief parts in English - mainly instructing you not to take photos or touch anything). The English written guides are useful but clearly not as extensive as the spoken tour; they are also just paragraphs of text so not very engaging and it’s a little tricky to work out what applies when - I would recommend reading most of it on the way in so you don’t end up staring at text instead of the pictures!

You also do need to arrive early as there is no booking system and precious little to do in the area. If you can get there close to 9am you shouldn’t have long to wait; later the wait will increase very quickly in season.

Worth a visit although children may be underwhelmed (our 12 year old certainly was). It would be good if the site could look at improving the experience for non-French speakers and modernising the...

Grotte de Rouffignac is pretty spectacular, although it might seem dim in comparison to Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles. The 100 mammoth paintings, followed with the rhinos, goats, bisons and wall spread of paintings are JAWDROPPING. It is absolutely worth a visit.

However, a few concerning things:

1. All tours are only in French. Those who can't understand French are expected to read the audioguide. Now, let's be practical here, no one's going to read while the tour guide is speaking. How are you going to read a paragraph while the tour guide points at a mammoth? Given the international presence, they should really have English tours, too.

2. The lighting at the entrance of the tour is rather dim. My mother fell down and no one really helped, except a kind family. The tour guide just avoided us altogether. Bad Move.

3. The number of paintings is fairly limited. For the price, I would expect to have seen more paintings. Perhaps a slightly longer tour should be given, at 1.5 hours but capped for only 10 people in a similar way to Les...

We visited in August with a 6, 5 & 4 year old. We arrived at 8.45 and were on the first train of the day but by the time we left two hours later there was a long queue and a wait to park so I would definitely advise arriving early. Under fives are free and required to sit on an adult's knee on the train. The train ride is about an hour with French commentary - the English hand-held guide is good and my six-year old could read it. We all enjoyed it, even the smaller children and it wasn't too long for them. You get to see cave drawings and cave bear nests 🙂. There is a nice path through the woods which we walked afterwards. It is cold underground though, so...