5Lascaux Cave, France

Back in the 1940s, a teenage boy stumbled upon a cave in the Dordogne filled with prehistoric paintings of more than 2,000 figures. But, after France opened the caves to the public in 1948, it wasn’t long before the effects of all those visitors started to destroy the paintings. 

The cave was closed but, in order that tourists could still enjoy a version of the paintings, the French built an exact copy nearby. Now on the UNESCO World Heritage List, the cave is a compelling record of mainly animal paintings from the Upper Palaeolithic period – about 17,000 BC.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR