7 Best Sights in Tours, The Loire Valley

When King Edward VIII of England abdicated his throne in 1937 to marry the American divorcée Wallace Simpson, the couple chose to escape the international limelight and exchange their wedding vows at this elegant 16th-century château. Although it’s decorated with period furnishings and features Art Deco bathrooms, all eyes are drawn to the mementos from the duke and duchess of Windsor's stay (including the famous Cecil Beaton photographs taken on their big day). Fashionistas will also appreciate the haute-couture wardrobe compiled by the stylish lady of the house, Fern Bedaux. Befitting the owners' flawless taste (if questionable politics, as the Bedauxs were known fascist sympathizers), the château is a particularly pretty example of the late-Gothic style.

North from the Basilique St-Martin to the river is Le Vieux Tours. This lovely medieval quarter—a warren of quaint streets, wood-beam houses, and grand mansions once owned by 15th-century merchants—has been gentrified with chic apartments and pedestrianized streets. It's centered on Place Plumereau, Tours’s erstwhile carroi aux chapeaux (hat market). Local college students and tourists alike love to linger in its cafés, and the buildings rimming the square have become postcard staples. Numbers 1 through 7 form a magnificent series of half-timber houses; note the wood carvings of royal moneylenders on Nos. 11 and 12. At the top of the square a vaulted passageway leads to medieval Place St-Pierre-le-Puellier. Running off Place Plumereau are other streets adorned with historic houses, notably Rue Briçonnet—at No. 16 is the Maison de Tristan, with a medieval staircase.

Only two sturdy towers—the Tour Charlemagne and the Tour de l'Horloge (Clock Tower)—remain of the great medieval abbey built over the tomb of St-Martin, the city's 4th-century bishop and patron saint (and credited as the founder of "modern" wine making in France). Most of the abbey, which once dominated the heart of Tours, was razed during the French Revolution. Today the site is occupied by the bombastic neo-Byzantine Basilique St-Martin, which was completed in 1924. There's a shrine to St-Martin in the crypt.

Built between 1239 and 1484, this noted cathedral, one of the greatest churches of the Loire Valley, reveals a mixture of architectural styles. The richly sculpted stonework of its majestic two-tower facade betrays the Renaissance influence on local château-trained craftsmen. The stained glass dates from the 13th century (if you have binoculars, bring them). Also take a look at both the little tomb with kneeling angels, built in memory of Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany's two children, and the Cloître de La Psalette (Psalm Cloister), on the south side of the cathedral, where the canons of St-Gatien created some of the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts in medieval Europe.

This dynamic museum is set in Tours's most extravagant example of early Renaissance domestic architecture and one of its most extensively restored historic monuments; the neighborhood was almost completely destroyed by German bombs in 1944—hence the decidedly less romantic architecture all around it. The beautiful creamy white building (worth seeing for the architecture alone) now hosts a changing program of contemporary art exhibitions featuring artists from around the world. 

In what was once the archbishop's palace (built into an ancient Roman wall), this museum features an eclectic selection of furniture, sculpture, and wrought-iron work, plus art by Rubens, Rembrandt, Boucher, Degas, and Calder. A favorite is Fritz the Elephant, stuffed in 1902.

Housed in the cloisters of the 13th-century church of St-Julien, this collection honors the Compagnonnage, a sort of apprenticeship-cum-trade-union system. On display you'll see virtuoso 19th-century works produced by candidates for guild membership, some of them eccentric (an Eiffel Tower made of slate, for instance, and a château constructed of varnished noodles).