Day 25, Friday, September 22, 2023

Today we explore Tours.  Our apartment is within easy walking distance of downtown. First stop is the Tours Train Station which is one of the prettiest train stations in France. The architect is the same one which designed the station which is now the  Musée d’Orsay .  I can see the resemblance. The inside is decorated with tiled pictures of French towns and chateaus.

We pass a little patisserie and buy couple treats for our tea time.  So far I am able to have the odd gluten treat with no ill effects, although I am sensitive to gluten at home. They were delicious!

We visit the garden behind the Beaux Arts Museum and see this phenomenal tree!  It is an enormous Lebanon Cedar with a height of 31 metres, a width of 33 metres and a trunk with a circumference of 7.5 metres!  It is a magnificent tree.  

I love big trees, and this one is one of the biggest I have seen.  It has enormous cones, and long arching branches, some of which lie along the ground.  Pictures do not do it justice.

There are flowers and lots of benches.  The device just above the red flowers is used so that the gardeners can sit or perhaps lie down and weed without having to walk in the flower beds.

This is Fritz the Elephant.  He died in 1902 in Tours.  Please take moment to read about his tragic death.  He was stuffed and is on display in the gardens. https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/05/26/fritz-the-elephant/  

St. Gatien Cathedral is very ornate.  

The decorative work on the outside of the church is very delicate and beautifully carved.

This interesting coffee shop/art gallery was under part of a building and open to the street.

Tours has horse drawn wagons!

These medieval buildings lean out over the street.  Each floor extends a bit further out than the one below.  Note the interesting carvings on the grey building.  There is just so much to see everywhere.

This photo has an interesting story.  We were having tea and I noticed that there was a large duffel bag sitting unattended on a bench some distance from us.  It made me rather nervous.  We have seen signs to be aware of abandoned bags or other unusual activity.      Several people walked by and looked at the bag, but just kept walking, until this fellow walks by, turns around and sits down beside the bag.  He sits there for about 5 minutes, then casually stands up, looks at the bag, picks it up and quickly walks away.  Pretty sure the bag wasn’t his.  Tours is a university town and Bob figures someone just forgot their bag, but I wonder how anyone leaves a big duffle bag behind.

On the walk home we pass this flower store.  If we had a bit more room in our apartment I would have bought some flowers, they were so beautiful and not terribly expensive.