Tours

Tours is where most people stay while working through the Loire chateaux, and it is worth a day of its own. The Place Plumereau is a square of leaning timber-framed houses that fills with students from the university, and the lanes around it, Rue du Grand Marche and Rue Colbert, keep the same fabric. The cathedral of Saint-Gatien spans Gothic centuries with a Renaissance top to its towers and a cloister beside it. Of the great basilica of Saint Martin, once one of the largest pilgrimage churches in Europe, only two towers survive amid later streets, the rest pulled down after the Revolution; a nineteenth-century basilica holds the saint's tomb.

History

In Gaulish times Tours was a crossing point on the Loire; under Rome it was Caesarodunum, hill of Caesar, and in the 4th century, when its amphitheatre was built, the name of the Turones gave it Civitas Turonum, later Tours. It became a metropolis of the province of Lugdunum around 380-388, and its bishop Saint Martin, who shared his cloak with a beggar at Amiens, made it a great centre of pilgrimage on the road to Santiago; Clovis supported Saint Martin's monastery, Gregory of Tours restored the cathedral after a fire in 561, and in the 9th century Alcuin of York, abbot of Marmoutier, made it a heart of the Carolingian Renaissance. Through the Middle Ages the town had two rival centres, the old city around the cathedral and the archbishop's palace and Châteauneuf around the abbey of Saint Martin, walled around 918, which were joined in the 14th century (Wikipedia, Tours).

What to look for

• Place Plumereau - a timber-framed square that fills with people at night.
• Saint-Gatien cathedral - Gothic building topped with Renaissance lanterns.
• The Saint Martin towers - two survivors of a demolished basilica.
• The old lanes - medieval streets between the square and the river.

When to go

April to October; the city is lively year-round because of the university. Summer is busy with chateau visitors. Wine and food markets run through the week.

What to expect

Tours is a working city, not a museum town, and parts are ordinary. Place Plumereau is noisy late. Most visitors treat it as a base rather than a destination, which is fair.

Nearby

Villandry, Amboise and Azay-le-Rideau are all within half an hour.

Key facts