When I heard the news that France has opened the new Lascaux International Center or commonly known as Lascaux IV, I immediately asked my friends to visit this new museum as part of our trip to Andorra which seemed to be a great place to see. The tickets were very easy to secure by online booking from the Lascaux’s website and maybe our visit happened in March, there were plenty of free slot of tour to choose. We arrived the village of Montignac 50 minutes before our tour started, but because of many detours from road construction in the center of village and our GPS did not know this new site, we got lost and arrived at museum carpark 10 minutes before the tour started.

The stunning museum complex building is very modern but well integrated with overall nearby landscape. We met our guide who is excellent in French accent English. Our tour group was only 10 persons. The museum also provides an excellent hi-tech audio guide with personal ipad liked machine. First of all, our guide took us to the roof of the complex to explain the environment of Vezere River Valley, then we went to see a presentation of what this area was looked like in ancient time in each season especially the common wild animal and the story of how Lascaux has been rediscovered by local teens. Our guide took us to the small open corridor next to the forest while played the record of dog barking sound and voice of chasing boys to replicate the time when they discovered Lascaux. Then came the highlight of the tour, the replica of Lascaux Cave. The replica is stunning for its impressive works of multi-colored of art, the images of the rows of countless animal by ancient humans in the first and second rooms are really beautiful, while it was unbelievable that all are just a replica with faithful works to copy everything from the real cave. Then we went to see the new section that was not at the Lascaux II, so this section was quite interesting for people who already been to Lascaux II. While there are still a lot of paintings in this new section, most of them are lack of color, only fainted lines are visible, so without guide, this section really looked plain. After that the guide took us to another hall which display partial sections of paintings which we could see as long as we want for better understanding via the audio guide and multimedia. Then we went inside cinema hall which displayed history of Lascaux interpretation and study and ended the tour with nice meal at café museum.

Lascaux International Center is a very nice place to visit, the first and second hall of the replica are unbelievable and very beautiful. The display which tries to make a better understanding on cave study and history is really good and highly recommended, truly one of the best World Heritage Site of France. What is our opinion on Lascaux IV, I think what our guide said before we entered a replica cave is the very good summary “Human love beauty and in searching of beauty is a thing of human being. Art of Lascaux is beautiful, so it is natural that people around the world want to come here to visit Lascaux”.