What if you could walk in the footsteps of early humans, surrounded by the same towering cliffs and incredible artwork created by our ancestors 17,000 years ago?
Here’s exactly how to do it with the best 2 day Dordogne prehistory itinerary. It’s even possible to do this in one day if you are full of energy, but pressed for time.
You’ll begin in the South of France, surrounded by the limestone cliffs and green valleys of the Dordogne’s Vézère Valley, one of the most extraordinary places in the world to explore the earliest roots of human creativity found in the caves and rock shelters of the region.
This itinerary will have you staying two nights and one full day in the charming village of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France, and will give you an absolutely unforgettable agenda of discovery. Starting with a world-class museum, then evocative cave art, sweeping landscapes that have remained largely unchanged since the Ice Age, the International Center for Cave Art and the famous Lascaux IV, and a gourmet dinner featuring regional cuisine in a secluded garden courtyard steps from your charming hotel.
If you’re a cultural traveler, history buff, archaeology nerd, or art lover, this route brings prehistoric Europe to life in a way that’s difficult to explain. Even better, these visits are very mobility-friendly – even the caves! With a base at the lovely Cro-Magnon Hotel and easy drives and short walks between sites, this trip is accessible, comfortable, and deeply enriching.
We completed this as a two-day itinerary with slower-paced days, but it can be compacted into one busy day, or even extended with a few thoughtful additions of other locations in the area. I’ve visited many ancient sites in Europe over the years, and what follows is a first-hand guide to one of the most meaningful cultural experiences I’ve ever had – and one I can’t wait to repeat!
🏘 Base Camp: Les Eyzies-de-Tayac and the Cro-Magnon Hotel
Nicknamed the “Capital of Prehistory,” the little town of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac is the ideal home base for exploring the Vézère Valley’s remarkable prehistoric sites. Located beneath dramatic overhanging limestone cliffs, and dotted with stone houses, and little cafés, this small village punches far above its weight class in archaeological significance. Several caves, ancient rock shelters, and the renowned National Museum of Prehistory are all within walking distance, making this charming location practical and inspiring for a cultural stay.
The Cro-Magnon Hotel
54 avenue de la Préhistoire, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac
We stayed at the Le Hotel Cro-Magnon, just a short stroll from the museum. Backed right up against the rock cliffs that once sheltered our prehistoric ancestors, this hotel succeeds at being both rustic and refined. The rooms are comfortable, the setting is peaceful, and the service was genuinely warm and personal.
At least three languages are spoken by the polyglot owners (French, English, German), and most important to us – they welcome dogs so our little tag-along french bulldog got to enjoy it too!
What truly stood out, though, was the food: the hotel’s restaurant (one of the owners is the chef) serves beautifully prepared seasonal dishes in a serene, tree-lined courtyard. I started off with a gin and tonic which was next level amazing. Our dinner featured a foie gras sampler I’m still dreaming about, and a delicate plate of white asparagus and smoked salmon. Breakfast was equally lovely, with eggs to order, delicious fresh baked goods, and strong french coffee to fuel the day ahead.
For anyone planning this itinerary, I can’t recommend the Hotel Cro-Magnon highly enough. It’s ideally located, exceptionally well run, and adds a special layer of authenticity and charm to the trip. It even has a lovely outdoor pool!
✅ Check availability and book your stay (and dinner) at the Hôtel Cro Magnon!
Getting Around
To follow this itinerary, a car is essential. While Les Eyzies itself is compact and walkable, the major sites, including Rouffignac and Lascaux, are located in the surrounding countryside with limited public transportation. Fortunately, the drives are short and scenic, passing through some of the most beautiful terrain in the Dordogne.
☀️ Day 1 of Dordogne Prehistory Itinerary: The National Museum of Prehistory
1 Rue du Musée, 24620 Les Eyzies, France
After checking in to your hotel at 3pm sharp, begin your adventure in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac by heading out for the National Museum of Prehistory which is about a 10 minute stroll down the road. This is the perfect place to prime yourself for the rest of your visit in the fascinating world of Ice Age art, archaeology, and the lives of early humans. Check for full opening and closing schedules at their website.
Why Start Here?
This museum offers essential context and information that will help you get the most out of your visit to the caves. Seeing the tools, bones, skeletons, and carved art really puts you in that world and will add to your understanding of what you’ll encounter later. Trust me, what you learn here will come back to you again and again as you explore.
What You’ll See
Some highlights of the National Museum of Prehistory include:
🦬 The famous carved bison, a piece I’d only seen in books until now. I nerded out big time! It was thrilling to see it in person, and we even bought a reproduction in the gift shop.
💀 Elaborate Ice Age burials, including one of a little 4-year old child dressed lovingly in beautiful clothing adorned with hundreds of shell beads, along with hundreds more artifacts.
🦌 The skeletons of now-extinct animals, including a crazy huge elk with massive antlers.
🪨 A dramatic rock overhang and terrace built into the cliff, featuring a bigger than life-size sculpture of a Cro-Magnon man.
🏰 The remains of an old castle turned into part of the museum.
🎥 Video exhibits showing how some of the tools and objects you are seeing were made.
Accessibility and Practical Info
Plan to spend about 2.5 hours here.
♿️ The museum is mobility-friendly with elevators inside and wide spaces to view the cases of artifacts. The castle portion of the museum does have some stairs, but the vast majority of the museums must-sees are in the modern museum
Most signage is available in French and English.
🅿️ There is free parking across the street, but if you’re staying nearby, it’s a lovely and easy walk.
A small gift shop sells books, postcards, jewelry and replicas—perfect if you want to take a piece of prehistory home. I walked out with a pair of earrings and a reproduction of that bison I was talking about!
🍽 Dinner at Hotel Cro-Magnon
Finish your day with an aperitif and dinner at the incredible restaurant in the Cro-Magnon Hotel. This really is a magical little spot, particularly outside in the courtyard. We dined under a tree, surrounded by lavender and candlelight.
It’s popular with locals and visitors alike, with good reason, so be sure to make reservations ahead of time.
☀️ Day 2 of Dordogne Prehistory Itinerary: Rouffignac Cave, Lascaux IV & The International Center for Cave Art
Rouffignac: The Cave of a Hundred Mammoths!
25 minute drive from Les Eyzies to Fleurac
1 hour for the tour
After a beautiful breakfast of eggs to order, or a fresh-baked chocolatine and coffee at your hotel, get ready to head out!
Your next stop is the stunning Rouffignac Cave, an easy 25 minute drive on country roads from Les Eyzies, located on a densely-wooded hillside. While it may not be as famous as Lascaux, this cave is an awe-inspiring experience, especially if you love mammoths, which I really really do!
It’s also one of the few original caves still open to the public, making your visit as authentic as it gets. It really did give me goosebumps to be standing in the exact spot and looking at these incredible images, wondering what these artists would think if they knew.
The Experience
You’ll buy a timed ticket, and you can wait inside the entrance to the cave where there is a small gift shop and also some interesting informational signs about the cave.
Inside you’ll board a little open electric train that takes you a full 1 kilometer deep into the cave! Along the way, you’ll pass Ice Age bear beds (yes, cave bears once hibernated here!) and walls and ceilings covered in prehistoric etchings and drawings, many over 13,000 years old.
Highlights of Rouffignac Cave (Grotte Rouffignac)
🦣 Over 150 depictions of mammoths, more than in any other known cave!
🦬 Bison, ibex, horses, and other animals etched or drawn with charcoal, sometimes with incredible naturalism.
🖼 A large rotunda chamber with a very tall round ceiling with dozens of overlapping drawings, thought to represent a form of prehistoric “gallery wall.” This one was really fascinating.
🚂 The slow-moving train pauses at several key spots where your guide will illuminate the art with a flashlight, giving you some time to reflect on the craftsmanship, and symbolism of these works, and take it all in. To think that they were created by the light of small flickering reindeer fat lamps is mind blowing! It really gives you goosebumps.
Accessibility and Practical Info
🇫🇷🎧 Tours are guided and in French, but non-French speakers are welcome. For only iPad audiotours are available for you to take on the train in English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. Our guide spoke English and was able to answer questions in English as well.
🎟 Buy tickets on arrival or in advance. The cave sometimes sells out ahead of time, so play it safe and get tickets, particularly if you want a particular time slot. Tickets are €11 for adults, 8 for kids 6-12, and lap children (5 and under) are free. The cave is closed from November to April.
🧥Wear a light jacket: the cave is a constant 13°C (55°F).
🚂 The electric train makes this a good stop for travelers with limited mobility. You can also pull right up to the mouth of the cave and drop someone off if needed.
✅ While everyone’s different, there’s plenty of space overhead and to the sides and it didn’t feel claustrophobic at all to me.
🚫📷 There are no photos allowed inside the cave, but they do sell postcards in the gift area, and I photographed the info boards in the waiting area too. It will be enough that you’ll remember this special experience.
🚹🚺 There are restrooms located near the cave entrance that are open during the cave’s operating hours. Definitely use the restrooms before your tour begins, as the cave visit involves a train ride deep into the cave system, and there are no facilities inside.
🚫🦇 Also, no bats. If you were wondering.
🐂 Lascaux IV – The International Centre for Cave Art
Avenue de Lascaux, 24290 Montignac-Lascaux, France
40 minute drive from Rouffignac
Allow 3-3.5 hours for the cave tour, exploration of the museum, and films
🍽 If you’re hungry on the way, you can stop at a nice spacious outdoor eatery near Lascaux IV. We just grabbed burgers and fries which were good, and headed to the museum! You can also get something to eat at the cafe inside the museum during your visit.
From Rouffignac Cave, you’ll make your way to Lascaux IV in Montignac, about a 40-minute drive through classic Dordogne countryside. While the original Lascaux cave, which was discovered in 1940, is now closed to the public to preserve its delicate microclimate, Lascaux IV is an absolutely meticulous, full-scale replica paired with an immersive museum experience that brings the art and its context to life.
I’ll be honest, I was fairly skeptical that this experience was going to be worth it after our incredible tour of Rouffignac, but it far exceeded my expectations! After about 2 minutes, you absolutely forget that this isn’t the original cave.
The Experience
Lascaux IV is no ordinary replica. It’s a high-tech, thoughtfully designed space that combines art, history, science, and recreates perfectly the experience of standing in the cave itself. The tour begins with a guided walk through the “facsimile cave”, an exact 3D reproduction of the original down to 1/6 of a millimeter, complete with textures, pigments, and even the temperature of the cave. A full 90% of the cave is represented.
There are no pictures allowed inside the cave reproduction, but many of the rock faces are reproduced again inside the main exhibit building and you can photograph those.
What You’ll See Inside
- The Great Hall of the Bulls, featuring giant, dynamic images that feel like they’re in motion. It was jaw-dropping. The animals are so much bigger than I thought – some longer than 6 feet!
- Over 600 animal figures, including horses, stags, aurochs, and a mysterious unicorn-like creature, all painted in vivid pigments of red, gold, and black. Sometimes brushes were used, and other times paint was “air brushed” and blown through a hollow bird bone.
- The “Shaft Scene,” one of the few prehistoric depictions of a human figure with the head of a bird, or a mask of a bird head, was possibly part of a myth or ritual. It was located at the bottom of a deep and narrow shaft in the cave.
After visiting the cave, you can explore several interactive galleries:
- More reproductions of the art that you can photograph and explore up close.
- Audioguides in your native language that go into further depth about the different areas of the cave..
- A cinematic overview of Paleolithic life, how Lascaux was discovered, what science can tell us about it, and a retrospective of prehistoric art from around the world.
What Makes Lascaux 4 Special
- Scientific and artistic precision: The replica of Lascaux cave was created using advanced 3D scanning and laser mapping to mirror every single curve, crack, and color. It feels like AI meets the Ice Age!
- Photogenic architecture: The museum building, designed by Snøhetta, is formed like hillside looking like a low cave entrance. It is worth seeing on its own, with beautiful design inside and out.
- A fabulous gift shop that has all kinds of reproductions and modern interpretations of the art, souvenirs, books, and even local and regional food products and crafts.
Accessibility and Practical Info
⏳ Check here for opening hours throughout the year.
♿️ The cave and museum are accessibility friendly
☕ There’s a café and gift shop onsite
🇬🇧 Guided tours available in English (book in advance if possible).
🎟 Tickets required – strongly recommend booking ahead online, especially in summer.
🧥 The cave reproduction is cool but not cold – about 61 degrees F (16 degrees C). You might need a light jacket but I was comfortable without it.
🕰 Allow 3-4 hours to explore all the experiences fully.
🅿️ There is free parking immediately in front of the museum, and also about a 7 minute walk down the road.
Dinner at Nosco
7 Rue du Moulin, 24620 Les Eyzies, France
Head back to Les Eyzies and enjoy dinner at Nosco, right next to the National Museum, which focuses on local specialties and wines. Dine outside as the sun sets and enjoy the atmospheric surroundings of the medieval buildings of the village and the lush green forest and cliffs on the other side that hold the secrets of our ancestors.
How to Contract This Itinerary
Do it all in one day!
It is possible to fit both museums and both caves into one day. You’ll need to pre-book and check times before you buy your tickets. Opening times and days can change throughout the year. Consider switching the order of the sites around if it fits better with your location and schedule.
If you have to choose between restaurants for a dinner, I’d pick the Hotel Cro Magnon, but Nosco is a good second choice.
Guided Experiences
Want someone else to do all the figuring out and planning while you focus only on the wonder and enjoyment of these experiences? Then definitely join one of these curated and highly-rated adventures!
See You in the Dordogne!
We hope you enjoyed this 2 day prehistory itinerary and we’re absolutely positive it will be a trip you’ll never forget. Let us know if you decided to stretch it out and which add-on(s) you chose! This magical region of France will work its way into your heart, and anything you don’t have time for now will be a great excuse to come back for another visit!
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