Spelunking

So there’s not been much to say lately. Today there’s not much more. I went on the USAC field trip to St.-Bertrand-de-Comminges and the prehistoric caves at Gargas. St.-Bertrand is known for its cathedral and its Roman ruins. Our stops were entirely guided, so there was no time to actually look around on our own, so there’s not a whole lot to talk about.

Baths with the cathedral in the background.

 St. Bertrand-de-Comminges was originally built in 72BC by the Romans. The cathedral is on the top of the mountain. It’s a decent church, but at this point, I’ve seen so many better churches. At least the choir in this one was accessible to us, and fully furnished.

Nothing says solemnity like singing.

 We walked down the hill to see the remains of the Roman Theatre (which was the first I’ve seen, but not at all an impressive ruin), then the Roman Baths (which weren’t anything really worth seeing, Rome and Bath have better baths), and a forum (not much either, Trajan’s was better).

Great spaces for your storefronts: oh wait, there's no market at all?

 We went to a family run farm/restaurant for lunch, which lasted almost two hours with soup, then salad, then chicken and potatoes, then cheese, then pie, then coffee. It was pretty awesome. But there’s not much else to say about it.

Elizabeth apparently hadn't thought of the "cut the cheese" joke until today.

 We then went to Gargas, which is an original prehistoric cave system with cave paintings. This was easily the highlight of the day, and one of the coolest things of the entire semester. I say “original” because many of the bigger, more famous caves are closed to the public. They’ve made exact copies of caves such as Lascaux for the public to tour. At Gargas we get to see the original. Sadly, this means absolutely no pictures.

The ever elusive Alejandra and Emily.

 Gargas lays claim to nearly half of the “handprint” paintings in all of France, 231 in total in the two caves. The two caves are very different, one being narrow and tall, the other being very wide and very short (I spent a lot of time bent over in the caves).

USAC looking at a boring Roman ruin.

 After that, we returned to Pau. We had another movie night (which is becoming a 3 times/week event instead of a weekly event) with a completely full house: Elizabeth, Alejandra, and Jennifer joined us tonight, so it was a lively night. Now, it’s bed time.