Tours

• The old town is really lovely and great for wandering around.
• It’s a great place to learn French – in fact arguably the best place in the world, as they speak the purest French here in the Touraine region.
• It’s a great base for visiting some of the chateaux.

_{Picture: stained glass in Tours cathedral}

This city is a bit too busy around the train station.

I’m going in January! It’s for a class at my college, a program through our J-Term. I’ll be living with a host family and attending l’institut de touraine to learn french. I’m so excited but also really nervous… I’ve never been overseas (I’ve never even been on a plane!)... I’m looking forward to it, and if anyone has any ideas what I should do while I’m there, let me know! I’ll be there for a month. (And I’ll also take trips to Paris and Normandy.)

yesterday i went into town and took a nice walk down the loire and watched england and scotland on VI nations at a student pub. and scotland won in spirit, of course.

We stayed in a hotel called Le Chateau d’Artigny, and it was probably the single nicest place I’ve ever stayed. Remarkable service, remarkable restaurant, an inch thick wine list and one of the finest caves in the region…

The old city was fabulous, but be sure to cross the river and explore the other side.

The wine from the Vouvray region is great. Especially try the sparkling wines – the Champaign region is not the only place to get good sparling wines!

Tours is the place to go if you want to see French Chateaux (castles and grand mansions). We did 1.5 days worth of guided tours which depart from the Tours tourism office. The tour company was ‘Alienor’ and David was our excellent guide. I really enjoyed these tours as they were in a small mini-bus (8 seater) so we were never in a very large group – at most there were four other people on the tour with us. One of the tours also finished up at a cave (wine cellar) where we got to taste wine from the Vouvray region.
Tours, the city, is itself also a lovely place to visit. The old town is amazing – buildings date back to about the 15th century. There are plenty of interesting tourist sites. I highly recommend the Musee du Compagnonnage (showcases the amazing work of master craftsmen) and the Musee du Gemmail (a museum of art work created with glass – a little like stained glass windows, but made with layer upon layer of glass. It has to been seen to be understood – it is not possible to photograph these artworks as the three-dimensionality is what makes them so wonderful).
We spent four days in Tours and could have happily stayed for a few more.