A visit to Tours

The City Hall

We had a trip to Tours yesterday, the nearest city to where we are, about an hour from here.  It was a two-fold trip, to explore a new place and to find a family Rob had met a couple of years ago when he visited here with his friends from South Africa. We had their address but the Sat Nav wouldn't accept the street, so eventually we parked the car in a side street near the centre and walked around hoping Rob would recognize somewhere. To cut a long story short after walking for what seemed ages I eventually  remembered we have a Map App on the phone and managed to see where we were meant to be. So as it was now 2pm we thought we would have lunch and do a bit of exploring first. We found somewhere to have something to eat which was quite nice, Rob had his usual steak and I had a smoked salmon bagel, the restaurant was in a busy part of the city so we watched the world go by, people walking, or in cars, on buses and or in trams, while eating our meal.

It's Christmas!!

Where we had lunch

I was so pleased that opposite where we were there was a Christmas Market, so I dragged Rob across the road and we had a wander through that after lunch.

Looks like Father Christmas incognito!!!

With the train station in the background

We then walked to the Cathedral area in the old part of the city and had look inside as well.

In the gardens to the side of the Cathedral is an old cedar tree which is over hundred years old, which was possibly planted by Napoleon.

There is also in the gardens, very strangely, a stuffed elephant called Fritz, in a glass case. The story is he belonged to the circus, Barnum and Barry, and in 1902 he escaped and because they were not able to catch him and he was running wild they had to shoot him. However they were sad to have done this and to honour him they stuffed him and put him on show and there he is for all to see.

This was the theatre a newer facade at the front adjoining the old towards the back as can be seen in the photo above.













From the old part of the town we walked back up to the modern shopping area.

We then had a bit of a walk back to the car and drove to see Adeline and Francois and their children where we were very warmly welcomed and had a lovely chat for a couple of hours while snacking on bread and pate and drinking champagne.