On our way out of Dordogne region, before going to see Lascaux, we did a very quick stop at Sarlat we had flown over the previous day, for a super rushed visit (like only 20mn, which quite obiously not enough, but we had to get to Lascaux by 9 to get tickets for that morning, so we only had time for a few minutes in Sarlat. It was still better to see it very quickly than not at all: cool medieval town with city walls too.

we went to see Lascaux II, a replica of arguably the best cave with prehistoric paintings ever found. Ok, it's a copy of the original cave that is too small and couldn't cope with the extra CO2 brought by the visitors, but it's a really good copy and it looks incredible. Worth the visit, even after everything we had seen. Still no pictures allowed inside, despite the fact that it was a replica, so I'm attaching some pictures I found on the net:

looking around while waiting for the ticket counter to open. I think they love duck there ;)

From there, we started a long drive north, and stopped at Oradour sur Glane where the German SS massacred an entire french village (around 600 people), apparently "just because" and as a show of force with the resistance (which didn't live there). The burnt village was left as is as a monument (minus the bodies of course) and is worth seeing, although the museum that's supposed to explain what happens, and why, and whether the culprits were found later, does a very poor job of addressing those points. Quite a shame, really. Since the museum was so bad at explaining the relevant points, I went to the wikipedia article which explains better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane

women and children were gathered in the church and burnt there

After Oradour sur Glane, where we kind of wasted time at the subpar museum, we got back in the car to finish the drive towards the Loire region. We had just enough time left in the day (lots of driving) to go to Chateau de Chenonceau, a beautiful castle with great grounds and pretty gardens. They also had an impressive collection of 100 hunting dogs.

cellars for Jennifer :)

That visit and the long stretches of driving got us a bit late, so we didn't have time for much of a dinner, and just got a very quick bite to eat before going to our chateau hotel where we got a huge room and chateau life for 2 nights.