Tours : France

Tours Travel: France
Tours is a city in France, the préfecture (capital city) of the Indre-et-Loire département, on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. The Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines and for the perfection of its local spoken French.
Cathedral of Tours
The cathedral of Tours, dedicated to Saint Gatien, its canonized first bishop, was begun about 1170 to replace the just-started cathedral that was burnt out in 1166, during the quarrel between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. The lowermost stages of the west towers (illustration, right) belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in the profusely detailed Flamboyant Gothic of the 15th century, completed just as the Renaissance was affecting less traditional patrons than bishops, in the pleasure châteaux of Touraine. These towers were being constructed at the same time as, for example, Château de Chenonceau.
When the 15th century illuminator Jean Fouquet was set the task of illumninating Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, his depiction of Solomon’s Temple was modeled after the nearly-complete Cathedral of Tours. The atmosphere of the Gothic cathedral close permeates Honoré de Balzac’s dark short novel of jealousy and provincial intrigues, Le Curé de Tours (The Curate of Tours) and his medieval story Maitre Cornelius opens within the cathedral itself.