Plan your visit
Grotte de Niaux is one of France’s great natural sites — bring good shoes and a camera. Locate it on the map, book a room nearby in a click, or add it to your travel list to build your itinerary.
About Grotte de Niaux
Deep in the mountains of the Ariège, the Grotte de Niaux is one of the rare great painted caves of the Ice Age whose original artwork can still be visited. After walking some distance into the mountain by torchlight, visitors reach the Salon Noir, where black outlines of bison, horses and ibex, drawn around 14,000 years ago, emerge from the darkness on the pale rock walls, as fresh and powerful as the day they were made. Numbers are strictly limited to protect this fragile treasure, lending each guided visit a rare sense of privilege and awe. Set amid the wild Pyrenean scenery of the Vicdessos valley, Niaux offers an unforgettable, authentic encounter with the artists of prehistory.