Outside Toulouse - Excursions - Toulouse Travel Guide

Toulouse makes a great base for many adventures. We visited the Grotte de Niaux, and deep under the Pyranees we saw ancient paintings of bison & horses.

Do not attempt to visit the Grotte de Niaux unless you have booked the cave tour well in advance: you won't get a place. Fax-booking-form at: www.ariege.com/niaux (Tel: (33) 05 61 05 88 37): you'll get prompt reply- it is run most efficiently. Tours are in French, except for a few in the summer.

We took the train from the main station in Toulouse all the way to Tarascon - a journey of about an hour twenty minutes. Soon the Pyranees rise around you and you pass through the beautiful town of Foix.

So there we were: at Tarascon station, with no idea of whether there would be a bus on the village of Niaux and its cave. ...
Indeed there wasn't : it was Sunday. The village of Niaux is abot 5 or 6 kilometres from Tarascon - walkeable. We'd only gone about 200 metres when we were offered a lift. (Same thing happened on the way home - thank you, nice French people!)

Once at the village, it was a 20 minute climb (head for the church, turn left at sign) up a paved road to the cave itself. Price 9.40euros for adult, 5.70 euros kids: advance booking.

We travelled a kilometre underground, along what looks like a petrified underground beach. Our guide was excellent and we each carried a flashlight. Slippery & steep - and occasionally narrow - you need good shoes and to be relatively fit.

Deep inside, you see the rock art: vivid depictions of horses, bison and deer - how they might have looked in flickering torchlight - how they might seem to move.... how shapes & cracks in the rock might suggest the contours of animals. We noticed how the drawings seemed to be in the parts of the cave with the deepest echoes.

The whole journey would be easier if you hired a car in Toulouse - but then not such an adventure!

I should add that there is an 'Auberge' in the village of Niaux. A soft drinks machine at the cave itself but no food : take a picnic.

Outside Toulouse - Excursions, Toulouse

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Outside Toulouse - Excursions, Toulouse

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