A few years ago we spent a delightful week in a 10-bedroom chateau, about 3 hours north of here, with our travel buddies Paula, Kate, Cathy, and Jane. That area of France abounds in natural beauty along with numerous caves where prehistoric humans left their mark. Although we could have gone to the better-known Lascaux caves to see replicas of art from nearly 20,000 years ago, we chose the similar Pech Merle where a limited number of visitors are allowed each day to view the original paintings. You’ll never guess what we discovered on the back wall of our courtyard.

Although our house is old, we don’t think that it’s prehistoric; however, Bill was clearing away a lot of dead vines that literally covered a couple of walls outside and what we found underneath seemed to resemble what we had seen in those caves. In the first photo, Bill sees a moose looking to the right but I see a buffalo running to the left or it could be an early version of the east coast of North America embracing a condensed Europe and Asia. After all, this was 20,000 years ago.

Just to the left of that is a reindeer standing on it’s rear two legs…but it might be Mickey Mouse. Isn’t there a saying that everything that is new is old? Next we have Texas. Well, if the Vikings colonized America 500 years before Columbus discovered it, why couldn’t French cave dwellers have been there before that? Lastly is the rose window. That’s actually an air vent for the fireplace on the other side of the wall, but as I was looking at this photo I saw the heart shape in the upper right corner. Hmmm.

By the way, if you want to read more about the real caves here are links to their websites:

http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/?lng=en#/fr/00.xml

http://www.pechmerle.com/english/introduction.html