Tours

Tours began as a crossing point on the Loire in Gallic times. Under Rome it became Caesarodunum, the 'hill of Caesar', with an amphitheatre that grew into one of the largest in the empire; in the 4th century the town took the name of the Turones, the local people. Martin, its bishop from 371, made it one of the great shrines of Western Christianity, a stop on the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela, and in the 6th century Gregory of Tours wrote his Ten Books of History here. Alcuin of York made the abbeys of Tours a centre of the Carolingian Renaissance. Vikings sacked the city in 852.

Medieval Tours was two rival towns: the old episcopal city around the cathedral in the east and Châteauneuf, the merchant quarter around Saint Martin's abbey in the west, joined only in the 14th century. Louis XI made it the capital of France from his château at Plessis and introduced silk weaving, and the court lived in Touraine from about 1430 to 1530. The Wars of Religion damaged the city, and the court's return to Paris began a long decline.

The railway revived Tours as a junction in the 19th century. It was briefly the seat of government in 1870 and again in June 1940; 25,000 American soldiers were based here in 1917, and the Congress of Tours founded the French Communist Party in 1920. German incendiary bombs started a fire that destroyed part of the centre in June 1940, and Allied raids in 1944 killed several hundred around the station. Jean Royer, mayor for 36 years, rebuilt the Rue Nationale, saved the old town with one of France's first conservation areas and pushed the city south by diverting the Cher.

For centuries the people of Tours, the Tourangeaux, were said to speak the purest French in the country, because the court lived in Touraine from 1430 to 1530; a Council of Tours in 813 had already told priests to preach in the people's languages rather than Latin. Honoré de Balzac was born in Tours and set stories in its cathedral close, and the painter Jean Fouquet and the poet Yves Bonnefoy were also born here. The city calls itself the garden of France, and its pale stone and blue slate roofs earned it the nickname of the white and blue city.

Religion has shaped it deeply. Saint Martin's tomb still draws pilgrims to the basilica, and in the 19th century Tours became a centre of devotion to the Holy Face, with an oratory that receives many visitors each year. Music has a strong place too: the Florilège Vocal is an important international choral competition, the Fêtes musicales bring chamber music to the barn at Meslay each June, and Radio Béton's Aucard festival fills a park with current music.

With more than 30,000 students, the university founded in 1970 on the riverbank in the centre keeps the old town young, and Place Plumereau's terraces are the city's meeting place. Sport means the Paris–Tours cycle race each October and volleyball; the historic football club, Tours FC, was dissolved in 2025 after 106 years.

The commune had 138,668 inhabitants in 2022 and the metropolitan area about 526,000, making Tours the largest city of Centre-Val de Loire, although Orléans is the regional capital. The economy is mostly services — administration as the prefecture of Indre-et-Loire, hospitals, the university, retail and a busy conference centre designed by Jean Nouvel — and the air base at the airport adds a military presence. Fast trains put Paris under an hour away.

Many residents live in the old centre between the two rivers, in the 19th-century streets of the Prébendes, in Tours-Nord across the Loire or in the newer southern districts built on the land gained by moving the Cher in the 1970s, as well as in suburbs such as Joué-lès-Tours and Saint-Pierre-des-Corps. The tram that opened in 2013 ties north and south together, a second line has been under construction, and in 2025 the city felled about 800 elms along two streets to make way for it, despite opposition.

The day follows a provincial rhythm of morning markets, a proper lunch and quiet Sundays, broken by students in term and visitors in summer. Since 2022 the summer guinguette on the riverbank has become a regular evening outing, and the Loire paths fill with cyclists and joggers.

Tours is known for rillettes, made by seasoning pork, cooking it slowly in its fat for hours, shredding it and packing it under fat, to be spread on bread at room temperature; Tours, Le Mans and Anjou are notable sources. Rillons are the city's other pork speciality, and nougats are among its sweets. The cheese is Sainte-Maure de Touraine, an unpasteurised goat's cheese shaped like a log, rolled in wood ash and pierced lengthways by a straw.

The vineyards of Touraine surround the city. Vouvray, just upstream, is best known for white wines rated among France's best, and the region's red wines come from the Cabernet Franc of Chinon and Bourgueil further west. Wine with lunch is ordinary here, and the Halles de Tours, the covered market in the old town, is the place to find local cheese, charcuterie and wine under one roof.

Eating out centres on two streets. Place Plumereau's terraces serve food and drinks under the timber-framed houses, and Rue Colbert near the cathedral mixes French restaurants with Iranian, Turkish, Japanese and Italian ones. In summer, guinguettes on the Loire banks add music, dancing and simple food by the water.