While living in Germany from 1969 through 1977, my wife and I travelled extensively througout Europe. On one of our trips in the early 70's, we drove north from Madrid toward Santander, intending to follow the northern coastline back into France. Early one morning by chance I happened to notice a small sign referring to the Altamira caves. On a whim we pulled into the indicated parking lot and waited an hour or so for the elderly guide to show up for the morning's first tour.

No more than a dozen of us took the tour. I must say it was one of the most moving experiences of my life and certainly a highlight of our time living in Europe. I remember entering a relatively large anteroom near the front of the cave and then being led back into a much smaller chamber. (I only recall one chamber beyond the anteroom, though there probably were more.) A path had been dug out around the walls leaving a waist-high (or perhaps chest-high) plateau in the middle of the room that we had to squeeze around.

Although I had seen photographs in the past of cave drawings, I was completely unprepared for the impact the originals had upon me. What struck me most was how creatively the artist(s) exploited the contours of the wall. In a two-dimensional photograph you get no sense how the bulges in the rock surface were incorporated quite imaginatively and intricately into the bodies of the various animals.

Standing only inches from the drawings, I somehow had a sense of the presence of the artist. I could almost see him (or was it perhaps her?) laboring over the drawings with only fire to illuminate the surface. And, of course, that sense of the presence of the artist was especially acute when I viewed the image of the hand (which presumably belonged to the artist.) All in all, the visit was a wonderfully moving experience that has lingered prominently in my memory for four decades.

By the way, a few years later we were visiting the Deutshes Museum in Munchen and came across a simulation of that chamber at Altamira. You walked into a tunnel-like structure the walls of which replicated quite accurately the walls of the actual chamber. In fact, my wife and I were quite startled by how realistically the room was portrayed. Of course, the dampness and musty odor of the actual site were lacking, but other than that, we almost felt like we were back there. So I'm a little surprised to read that the replica located at Altamira today is such a disappointment. I would have to guess that it's not the same one we walked through at the Deutsches Museum.

While I feel bad that my visit to the cave roughly 40 years ago might have contributed to its deterioration, I will always be grateful that I had the chance to view it first-hand. As it turns out, the tour was indeed a "once-in-a-lifetime experience."