www.leseyzies-tourist.info. The self-styled ‘Capital of Prehistory’, les Eyzies is the main base for visits to Périgord’s famous prehistoric caves dating from the Paleolithic era some 12-20,000 years ago.

Overlooking les Eyzies, the Musée National de Préhistoire displays a huge array of prehistoric artefacts (www.musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr). Bones and utensils share the bill with cave drawings and carvings. To see the relics in situ, visit the Musée l’Abri Pataud, a private site belonging to a farmer who discovered his property was built over a reindeer hunter’s shelter (abri) used for over 20,000 years and carefully excavated layer by layer.

The main cave sites are all outside town (bike hire from the tourist office), and to be sure of a ticket in season, make an early start. The most spectacular, Las-caux, had to be closed (see Monti-gnac, below). The leading cave is now the Grotte Font-de-Gaume (1.5 km E via the D4. It is a 15-minute climb up to the cave mouth, beyond which tours of 20 people at a time wend past a startlingly sophisticated catalogue of cave paintings depicting bison, horses, mammoths and reindeer.

Other nearby sites include the Grotte des Combarelles (2 km E via the D47) with 300 animal carvings and the odd crude human likeness; the Grotte de Rouffignac (17 km NW via the D47/D32) visited by mini-train; and the Abri du Cap Blanc (7 km E via the D47/D48), a rock shelter rather than a cave. At la Roque Saint-Christophe (9 km NE via the D706), the limestone cliff was turned into a prehistoric high-rise with cave dwellings on five levels. For bizarre rock formations, look no further than the petrified tableau of stalagmites and stalactites in the Grotte du Grand Roc (2 km N via the D47).