Tours Hotels

The Tours Rundown

Tours is a sightseeing town in France where tourists can stroll at their leisure and truly enjoy their surroundings without a lot of tacky tourist traps, congested traffic or pushy peddlers. Many visitors rent bikes and ride the Loire riverbanks, or they take one of the guided tours offered by Loire Valley Time Travel. Old City Le Vieux Tours and Place Plumereau are popular areas for sightseeing as well. The Flower Market is a lovely place to walk and shop, and you can visit the Tours Castle or the centre of town where Joan of Arc’s armour was manufactured. Those who enjoy shopping will want to visit Rue Nationale, the newer shopping centre Atlantes, and Rue Bordeaux. There are also several art museums of interest in this town including Musee du Gemmail, with its stained glass exhibits, and the Musee des Beaux-Arts, which houses fine pieces from the French Revolution and medieval eras as well as a prized Rembrandt painting. If you love beautiful old architecture, Tours is sure to please with the Prieure de Saint-Cosme, a priory from medieval times that offers art exhibits, works by famed poet Ronsard, and fascinating old ruins for visitors to explore.

When To Go

Tours enjoys a moderate climate that rarely brings extreme temperatures or harsh weather. The summers are quite warm with average highs in the mid-20s C (mid- to high 70s F). August can bring 25-26°C (77-79°F) high temperatures, but summers are also the driest months with around 10 cm (3.9 inches) of rain. The early fall and late spring have the most pleasant temperatures with average highs around 18°C (64°F). Winters rarely reach freezing temperatures. In fact, the average winter low is 3-5°C (37-41°F), while daytime temperatures are usually a chilly 8-10°C (46-50°F). Tours is rainy during the late fall and early winter months, and the area can receive as much as 20 cm (7.9 inches) accumulation per month in these periods. There is rarely any snow in Tours due to its oceanic climate.

• Summer highs 24-26°C (75-79°F)
• Winter lows 3-5°C (37-41°F); rarely freezes
• Rains 10-20 cm (3.9-7.9 inches) per month; peaks in winter

Getting There

Air travellers can fly into Aeroport Tours Val de Loire, which has fairly limited services to London and a few other large cities. The Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris may be a better option, and with the extensive bus network in France you can get into Tours very easily for reasonable fares. The TGV train also services this airport directly, and it will drop you at your destination within two hours, for a reasonable €40. The train station nearest Tours is St Pierre des Corps, from which you can travel on the high-speed rail to Paris, Toulouse Nantes and Bordeaux. You can conveniently drive down A10 from this station since Tours is located where A10, A28 and A85 intersect.

• Air: Tours Val de Loire or Paris
• Train: TGV from Paris; SNCF from Orleans
• Drive: On the crossroad of A10, A28 and A85

General Information

Attractions&Activities

Restaurant&Nightlife

Climate

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