Explore 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.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours occupies the former archbishops' palace beside the cathedral and has held the city's art collections since 1910. It shows two panels by Mantegna, works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Delacroix and Monet, and 18th-century French painting; in its courtyard stand a cedar of Lebanon planted in 1804 and Fritz, a stuffed circus elephant.

The Château de Tours is what remains of the royal castle of Tours on the bank of the Loire: the round Tour de Guise, the 15th-century Logis des Gouverneurs and a barracks wing of about 1781 built between the old towers. Restored in the late 20th century, it is now the city's exhibition centre, with temporary shows of photography and art.

The Château de Villandry, 15 km west of Tours, is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century for Jean Le Breton, a minister of Francis I, around an older keep. From 1906 Joachim Carvallo recreated its gardens on several terraces from Renaissance designs: an ornamental kitchen garden of vegetables in box-edged beds, ornamental flower gardens and a water garden.