Tours in 4 days

A cobbled square of timber-framed houses with carved gables above café terraces, surrounded by streets leading to courtyards, spiral stairs and Renaissance mansions.

Saint Martin's tomb made Tours a great pilgrimage centre; of the medieval church, demolished after the Revolution, two lone towers remain.

France's oldest museum of the craft guilds, in the former Saint-Julien abbey, showing masterpieces made by journeymen: miniature staircases, roof frames, ironwork and sugar work.

Built from 1170 to 1547, with a Flamboyant front and Renaissance towers; the choir windows are among Europe's most complete 13th-century sets.

The former archbishops' palace, whose highlights are two Mantegna panels from the San Zeno altarpiece in Verona, alongside Rembrandt, Rubens, Degas and Monet.

A 19th-century garden of nearly six hectares created for the medical school, with glasshouses of tropical and threatened South African plants.

An 11th-century priory west of the city where the poet Pierre de Ronsard was prior until 1585; he is buried in its ruined church.

The last great Renaissance château on the Loire, finished around 1536, famous for terraced gardens recreated from 1906 by Joachim Carvallo.