Day 10 – Brive to Dinan

Good morning and apologies first of all for the lateness of our Day 10 update. Based on the fact its getting on for halfway towards Day 11, we may as well call this one "Day 10 & 11 – Brive to Dinan"….

Today was again a nice leisurely start, with a spot of breakfast downstairs, followed by a bit of construction work..

After which, we packed our bags, hung out the window for one last sniff of nextdoors wiff-eee..

Then we began our relatively short journey to Lascaux...



..where we stopped for coffee in the town first, had a quick wonder down by the river..

..then continued up the road to visit the much talked about caves..

And most impressive they were.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, so you will just have to trust us on that one.

Ok, Ok, we've nicked some pics of their website, just to save you the bother of searching…

They are just two of the many paintings from the caves.

It is called Lascaux II because it is an exact replica of the original caves that were discovered in1940 by a boy walking his dog, however, after opening in 1948 to the public, the sheer volume of people exhaling carbon dioxide was causing the limestone to detoriate, and so in 1963 the original caves were closed.

In 1972, they commenced work on painstakingly replicating the cave structure (the cave walls are all within 5mm of the original), and the paintings themselves have been reproduced using the original pigments and brush materials that Cro-magnum man used around 17,000 years ago. .

All of this took 11 years, and Lascaux II was opened to the public in 1983.

What was most incredible was not only the detail of the paintings done all those years ago by primitive candlelight and wooden scaffolds, but the fact that all these years later, people have re-created it so accurately.

A well spent hour later, we hit the road again, and raced some trains…

..before stopping in a lovely little town for lunch, where we had the most delicious Chicken, Chips and Salad in this little bar..

(which seemed to have more English than local people in it, but they were all very friendly none the less!)

Whilst having a quick wonder round the town to walk off our large lunch, who should we go and bump into but this fella!

It appears he has left his brother behind and gone solo however.

So we returned to the car park..

…and picked up our Chariot.

Bellies full, all that remained was to feed the car some juice, after which we hit the roads again, passing another one of these..

…and plenty more of these..

… a couple of these..

..and even one of these..

And we drove and drove…. Time flew by..

..and before long we were not that far from Renne, so Mike fired up the laptop (which unbelievably behaved itself for once!) and started the search for accommodation.

Many phone calls later, it became apparent that everywhere in Renne was full, so we decided to stop here for dinner..

(For years we have driven past these Restaurants, but never actually experienced them. The experience was good, and we whole heartedly recommend them!)

…then we carried on driving.

By this time, we were starting to worry less about where we'd sleep, but more about how we'd get there..

…and as it was now late, the only garages we found were the ones that need the "CB" credit cards, that neither of us had…

So my right foot became lighter and lighter, and we decided that the only thing for it was to drive carefully onwards to a hotel, which we eventually found in Dinan!

We crawled up the hill, surely running on vapours by this time, and coasted down the ramp into the carpark, which is where the car sits now. Tune in later to find out if we make it to the garage or not!

So, for those still interested, here is todays route..

After doing over 400 miles yesterday, not only do we have no petrol, but the car is filthy again, so assuming we find a garage before the vapours expire, we're then going in search of one of these...