Hotels in Tours, France

A little about Tours...

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. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the perfection of its local spoken French, and for the famous Battle of Tours in 732. It is also the site of the cycling race Paris-Tours. Tours is the largest city in the Centre region of France, although it is not the regional capital, which resides in its second-largest city of Orléans. It has got 142.000 inhabitants in the city itself and 297.631 on the metropolitan area in 2006.

Main Sights:
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.

Tours is famous for the old part of the city, called Le Vieux Tours, with medieval half-timbered houses, and Place Plumereau, a square with busy pubs and restaurants, whose open-air tables fill the center of the square. Boulevard Beranger crosses Rue Nationale at Place Jean-Jaures, and is the location of weekly markets and fairs.

Transportation: Today, with its extensive rail (including TGV) and autoroute links to the rest of the country, Tours is a jumping off point for tourist visits to the Loire Valley and the chateaux of the kings.

Tours is on one of the main lines of the TGV. You can travel down the Western coast to Bordeaux in two hours and a half, or to the Mediterranean coast via Avignon and from there to Spain and Barcelona. It takes one hour by train from Tours to Paris by TGV and one hour and a half to CDG airport. Tours has two main stations, a central station and St Pierre Des Corps, which is just outside the center, and is the station which trains that don't terminate in Tours go through.

Tours Loire Valley Airport connects the Loire Valley to London Stansted Airport. This link is provided by the Irish airline Ryanair. National connection to Figari on Corsica is available during the summer, too.

Tours dœsn't have a metro rail system, instead there is a very efficient bus service, the main central stop being Jean Jaures, which is next to the Hôtel de Ville, and rue Nationale, the high street of Tours. A tram is planned to be built in the next few years.