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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.

July 20  / July 22