When I heard that France would have opened the new Lascaux International Center known as Lascaux IV, I immediately wanted to visit this new museum which seemed to be a great place to see. The tickets are easy to secure by online booking from the Lascaux’s website (which could be improved a lot) even if not all guided tours are on display, but since my visit happened last week (September), there were plenty of free slot of tour to choose. They cost 16€, a remarkable price I should say. The village of Montignac is easy to reach only by car though.

As other people said, the museum complex building is modern and well integrated with the nearby landscape. Professional guides accompany groups of max 32 persons (commencing every six minutes) from the site’s welcome desk to the exit of the reproduction of the cave. After being guided to the roof in the open air to explain the environment of Vezere River Valley, listening to a dog barking sound and voice of chasing boys to replicate the time when they discovered Lascaux in a small open corridor next to the forest, seeing a presentation of what this area looked like in ancient time, we finally entered a kind of replica of Lascaux Cave. Inside the replica, the atmosphere is like a real cave. It is cool and dark. They say this space is dedicated to “contemplation”, so, even if you are staring at replicas you are not allowed to take any picture even without flash, which I found exaggerated for our “image society”! After that, you go by yourself to the multimedia part of the museum, the Lascaux Studio where eight large walls of the cave are reproduced separately, with a kind of IPad.

To tell the truth, I expected much more, both from the cave replica and the museum itself. The iPad is not immediately comprehensible and many explanations are poor. If you had not been at Lascaux II, you don’t realize what has been added in this new museum, no plan of each site (I mean, the real Lascaux, Lascaux II and IV) is on display to better undestand where you are nor a complete video of the real Lascaux is projected. There’s a huge waste of space in a three-room cinema with beautiful images though. When I came back home I found out on their website there was a 3D cinema but I didn’t see it once onsite!! If it really was on offer, it means it was not signalled properly, since I stayed there 3 hours and visited every corner, nor the guide suggested us to go and see it. So, if you go, try to not miss it like me. I liked a VR video at the very end of the visit but it was very short and provided only a ride in the first big cave. Finally, don’t buy gourmet souvenir at Lascaux International Center because they cost the double you can find outside.

If you really want to see a spectacular real cave with beautiful and interesting prehistoric remains, go to Pech Merle cave in the Lot Valley. It’s not a Unesco site, but it’s incredible. The guided tour (I think only in French) lasts 1 hour, which is a little bit too short but ok; no photos are allowed and here you really will regret this rule since the cave is magnificient not only for it’s paintings but also for it’s huge and special stalagmites and stalactites formations.

I posted my video of the Lascaux Studio on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YyETWvDVk44