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July 13 / July 15 /
July 16 /
July 16 evening /
July 17 /
July 18 /
July 18 evening
July 19 / July 20 /
July 21 / July 22 /
July 23 /
July 23 evening /
July 24
July 21
I've been in some caves before but I
never expected these grottes to be so massive.
 
There were some places where we had to duck
and squeeze through but mostly it was like walking through huge rooms and
hallways with 30 - 50 foot ceilings. They only take a limited number of
people in these grottes daily to maintain the temperature and overall
environment to protect and preserve the paintings which they estimate are
13,000 to 14,000 years old. They won't let you take pictures inside either.
We went about 600 meters back into the cave to get to the large room where
many of the drawings were. It was amazing to see how much detail and how
vibrant the colors were in the paintings. They were mostly red or black, but
I would have expected them to be pretty faded away after 13,000 years. They
would use textures in the wall to make their drawings, also. If there was a
round hole or circle, they might use that as the eye for the bison and draw
the rest of the animal in place. It was certainly worth seeing.
We left that grotte and drove to another
one that formed a passageway through a mountain. The Tour route actually
rode through it in an earlier stage. This grotte was more of a place where
people lived as opposed to the on in Niaux where it is more of a religious
room or sanctuary.
Angie was thrilled to have finally seen
the grotte drawings! We drove to Toulouse to drop off our rental car and
take the train to Paris in the morning. We found a hotel room next to the
train station, got rid of the rental car, ate dinner and still made it back
to the hotel room in time to watch the replay of today's stage. It was a
tough stage with a bit of a climb at the finish, but Lance was able to
maintain his lead and stay in yellow. Only one more flat stage for the
sprinters to play, which shouldn't affect the overall lead, and then the
final Time Trial. That'll be Lance's last chance to win a stage of this
years Tour.
I broke down the tandem and packed it up
as we had probably done our last riding of this trip. We were looking
forward to taking the train to Paris instead of the long drive.
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