Tour of Tours

L'Hotel du Monnaie - 18th C Mint building, 

Our idea was to take the TGV (tres grande vitesse) train somewhere. Judi's much better idea was to take the TGV to Tours and walk around for the day with her friend Sylvie, a retired art history professor and resident of Tours for 40 years.

If you want to know more about Tours, you can find a good description through the link. I'm just going to try to convey the essence of what I picked up.

Over its long history, Tours was important spiritually (it's the resting place of St. Martin), militarily (Joan of Arc came to Tours before launching her campaign to save France), culturally (it was Balzac's birthplace) and politically (it was the capital of France, twice), all of which importance still permeates the place, especially if you have Sylvie showing you around.

Tours got its current name from the Romans, who left traces of their occupation in the form of a huge rampart wall and the foundations of an amphitheatre that could seat 34,000. 

The amphitheatre is gone but the rampart wall is still visible:

Beyond the French hedge, and next to the
Musee des Beaux Arts, the old Roman wall.

Tours' Christian tradition prevailed after the departure of the Romans.

Foundations of a nunnery, from the 10th century.

In the thirteen and fourteenth centuries, grand cathedrals were built (and destroyed).

Cathedral St-Gatien

The next 500 or so years can be summarized by one fine house, the Hotel Gouin:

Hotel Gouin dates back to the 1490s.

 As it looked in the 19th C.

After June 1940, when the Germans bombed Tours

How it looks today

The Loire River brought wealth and commerce to Tours (and flooded a lot in the 19th Century).

There is much more to say about Tours, but I'll stop here. One of these post's appeals is that they are short. And I'm short of time this morning. We're on to the Georges Pompidou Centre, and then a tour of Les Halles.

A bientôt.

Karen