Explorer Tours

The Basilica of Saint Martin stands over the tomb of Saint Martin, the 4th-century bishop of Tours, on part of the site of a large medieval abbey church demolished after the French Revolution. The present neo-Byzantine building, designed by Victor Laloux, was built from 1886 and consecrated in 1925; the saint's tomb lies in its crypt.

Place Plumereau is a square at the centre of the old Saint-Martin quarter of Tours. Known in the Middle Ages as the Carroi aux Chapeaux, it was named after town councillor Charles Plumereau in 1888 and enlarged in 1895. Timber-framed houses from the 15th century line the pedestrian square, and café and restaurant terraces fill much of it.

Tours Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Gatian, was built between about 1170 and 1547, so its style runs from the Gothic choir to the Flamboyant west front and the Renaissance tops of its two towers. Inside are 13th-century stained-glass windows in the choir and the tomb of the children of Charles VIII; the Psalette cloister adjoins it on the north side.