Large scale holography!
Also enjoyed looking at the paintings, particularly those of poplar plantations and especially Peuplar 3 - seems we were both photographing them last year -
Meanwhile my wife’s paintings are at:
My web-site’s at:-
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Both have been on the market for over ten years! One’s overpriced - half of it is medieval and probably in decent shape but the other half is a badly built C20th addition, the other wholly medieval house will never sell because it has an even older, ruined defensive tower in the back garden that’s twice as big as the house, but isn’t mentioned in the estate agent’s blurb.
There’s also a third, much larger and spectacular property for sale that was an important house whose banqueting hall is associated with the Knights Templar, but only a small part of that place is currently habitable and the cost of restoration is incalculable.
The best houses in the village are above the level of the road because it gets flooded from time to time - these are the oldest too.
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We have a French friend who is a famous cave photographer/speleologist, which has given us insight into the many local caves in this area. There are hundreds of caves here that are not open to the public, some of them “painted” as they say, or engraved. The Lot Valley was once a very popular area, judging from all the painted caves, alot of ritual/ceremony happened here, it was probably very rich in natural resources/food and could accomodate groups. There was even co-existence with the Neanderthals for a time.
I had an intense feeling of the significance of the sacred site as I stood before the famous “spotted horses” at Peche Merle. It is a very powerful place. The guide barely mentioned any religious/ceremonial significance at all. In Australia, some Indigenous peoples still practice important cultural events near painted/engraved areas today. Although we cannot say there were the same meanings happening here, perhaps they indicate initiations, shamanistic ceremonies, fertility/increase ceremony, kinship markings, calendrical oservations, ancestral stories, origin myths, or celestial meanings we can only guess at now. There are many theories. A fascinating subject!
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Extremely impressed with the paintings and photos! I especially love the paintings of reflections of the Lot, and the baker series. David had a few paintings in a group exhibition at Montsales last year, we joined their Association. We are still finding our way around the local art scene, which seems very flourishing!
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Welcome to the party 
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You might have a mo to go walkabout over to https://www.chrisnationphotography.com/
It’s badly in need of updating with fresh material - my cloud project for example. And I got fascinated by shooting bees and butterflies in the summer of 2021 while the wait for my CdS went on and on … and on
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Not nearly as wonderful as Pech-Merle, IMO. Lascaux these days is merely a copy - albeit a good one. Pech-Merle, it’s still possible to gain access because the caves are so large and so our breath does less damage to the paintings. Also, if I remember correctly, Pech-Merle is older than Lascaux.
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This is the kind of useful local knowledge one needs - thank you!
Welcome to the site… And to France!
How long have you been here? Do you miss anything in particular about Australia? I tend to pop back to the UK regularly enough that I can stock up on the few things I miss, but I guess that’s not so easy for Oz 
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If we’re going to start advertising our photo-sites (and Chris’s is good - never seen Marks stuff before) then I have a couple of flickr pages too:
Not much France on the sites… yet.
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I appreciate it’s a copy, but if it’s your particular area of interest, probably worth a visit. I don’t know if they have guides, but sometimes they are just as interesting for their knowledge as the spectacle you’ve gone to view.
Just visited your flickr site and got the impression that one or two of your fine photos might not have been taken in East Anglia, but I could be wrong…
We visited in September last year. What an incredible place. I think we were particularly impressed by the hands
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Very kind of you to call them fine. I’m not sure about the East Anglia connection (and concerned I’ve missed a joke) but to the best of my knowledge there’s nothing up there from East Anglia, and it’s been a long time since I went to that part of the country.
Oops - sorry - thought that’s were you where/are - ‘very flat and all that’ (not). The Auvergne(?) photos prompted the erroneous quip.
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Same in Vézère and Dordogne, caves and abris sous Roche etc. Pech Merle is wonderful but I love the grotte Chauvet in Ardèche.
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Hi Gareth, we have been in France for nearly four years now, but it took quite a while to find our house in the Lot. We started looking up in the north, then rented for a while in the Dordogne, and kept going further and further south until the hilly landscape, the river and the little stone villages of the Lot Valley, totally charmed us! I try and go back to Oz every year, except last year due to covid, so I am due to go back soon; my family, sons and friends are still there and I do miss them. Also, I miss the wonderful array of Asian foods like Vietnamese Pho that Australia has! We both also miss Bunnings, a huge hardware chain that has everything you could ever need to renovate at low prices. Light globes for 50 cents! 
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Make it, not difficult 
- you can get the ingredients relatively easily since Indochina was a French colony.
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We’re in Oxfordshire (hence the flatness) and that’s where most of the pictures come from, although there’s a few (like the top image/link) from Pedaso in Italy and various other bits of the world we’re been privileged to see.
That bottom one looks like a Pink Floyd cover
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