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Wandering through the wine region of Southern Burgundy mind your feet or you’re liable to fall into a big hole. Like ancesters long past you're tredding 400,000 years of footsteps of prehistoric man before you. Some of the best pre-historic caves in France are in the area of the low hills between the Saône and Loire Rivers, where long after the cavemen stopped living in the rock, now only cooling wine dwells in caves. While driving the back roads of wine vineyards between Tournus and Cluny, follow the signs to Azé.

Azé Caves

Unremarkable from the surface with a snack shop and a small natural spring fountain, the clue of what lies beneath can be determined perhaps by the school bus of children on a day outing. The caves of Azé (Grottes Azé) is an amazing network of caverns with its own flowing underground river coursing along the railed pathway on the lower level. Cavemen lived in societies here for thousands of years and the caves provide some recreated exhibits of what life might have been like for the ordinary Cro-Magnon family along with exhibits of the caves discovery. Prehistoric saber toothed cave lions and bears lived here, too, probably snacking on the human treats from time to time and a remarkable collection of skeletons can still be seen in the archeological museum above ground. A tour of the caves takes about an hour 30 minutes and the snack area can be a pleasant stop to get over your wine hangover. There is a camping ground on the premises as well for the nature inclined.

Solutrean Man and Blanot Grottos

Just near the small town of Blanot at the base of Mount Saint-Roman underneath the priory house of the Romanesque church, the underground maze of caves of the Grottes Blanot are marked by a monument. Below ground a maze of cave rooms on a number of levels descend to depths up to 80 meters.

In 1866 two residents of nearby Mâcon happened on a discovery of animal bones hunted by pre-historic man at the base of a unique rock formation called the Roche de Solutré. The major archeological find became the Solutré site and the Solutrean Man who was responsible for inventing the crewel needle, joined the story of the Cro-Magnon period. The Solutré Department Prehistory Museum provides a fascinating look into this period of around 25,000 years ago with exhibits of artifacts, models and audio-visual media. © Bargain Travel Europe

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Southern Burgundy

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See Also:

ABBEY CLUNY RUINS

CHATEAU DE CORMATIN

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