July 9th, 2010 | 
Author: A new geological tourist attraction in the Dordogne is proving a success, reports SudOuest.com.
Since opening to the public in May this year, the Tourtoirac cave has been visited by around 9,000 tourists and cave explorers. Featuring the same breathtaking geological phenomenon as the region’s other underground attractions, visitors have been drawn to the alien atmosphere of the cave.
Filled with the millenia-old concretions that have fascinated spelunkers throughout the world, the cave boasts an eerie and fascinating environment utterly unlike the surface. The ambient temperature of 12 degrees that persists throughout the small system of caverns and grotto’s will also be welcome to visitors sweating in the Dordogne’s current heat.
“It’s a beautiful grotto with a wide variety of concretions,” said Bernard Cazeau, president of the General Council of the North Dordogne. He says that new features are being identified and studied with each trip to the site. “We discover other things that are not necessarily seen the first time,” said Cazeau.
The cave’s transformation to a public attraction has not been an entirely smooth one however. First discovered in 1995 by Jean-Luc Seriex, the cave system was originally flooded in several places and extremely difficult to explore. It was only through repeated expeditions that its dimensions were mapped – expeditions that were not without danger. On one attempt shortly after its discovery both Jean-Luc Sireix and another caver would lose their life.
Yet Jean Luc’s enthusiasm for exploring this natural wonder inspired both her father and members of the Tourtoirac council to keep trying to make the cave accessible to a wider audience. For over a decade, Mayor Dominic Durand has fought to secure the cave for the public and add another tourist attraction to the Northern region of the department.
“Many people were against this project,” says Durand, “these negative energies have given us more strength to get there.”
Mayor Durand says he is proud of the cave’s popularity among visitors despite a lack of advertising. “Word of mouth works very well,” he said, adding that this season he hoped to make Cave Tourtoirac part of the circuit of tourist destinations passing through the area, which includes the nearby castle of Hautefort.
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