Tours
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
 |
This
article needs additional citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding
citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009)
|
|
Tours
|
|
 |
|
|
Town hall and Place Jean Jaurès
|
|
 |
|
|
City coat of arms
|
|
 
Tours
|
|
|
Location within Centre
region [show]
|
|
|
Administration
|
|
|
Country
|
France
|
|
Mayor
|
Jean Germain
(2008–2014) |
|
Statistics
|
|
|
Elevation
|
44–109 m
(144–358 ft)
|
|
Land area1
|
34.36 km2 (13.27 sq mi)
|
|
138,268 (2009)
|
|
|
- Density
|
4,024 /km2 (10,420 /sq mi)
|
|
INSEE/Postal code
|
|
|
1 French Land Register data, which excludes
lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river
estuaries.
|
|
|
2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g.,
students and military personnel) only counted once.
|
|
Tours (pronounced: [tuʁ]) is a city in central
France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.
It stands on the lower reaches
of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region
around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection (as perceived by
some speakers) of its local spoken French, and the Battle of Tours in 732. It is also the site
of the Paris–Tours road bicycle race. Tours is
the largest city in the Centre region of France, although
it is not the regional capital, which is the region's second-largest city, Orléans. In 2006,
the city itself had 138,268 inhabitants and the metropolitan area had 546,105 .
|
Contents
[hide]
·
3 Sights
·
5 City
|
In Gallic times the city was
important as a crossing point of the Loire. Becoming part of the Roman Empire
during the 1st century AD, the city was named "Caesarodunum"
("hill of Caesar"). The name evolved in the 4th century when the
original Gallic name, Turones, became
first "Civitas Turonum" then "Tours". It was at this time
that the amphitheatre of Tours, one of the five largest in the Empire, was
built. Tours became the metropolis of the Roman province of Lugdunum towards
380–388, dominating the Loire Valley, Maine andBrittany. One of the
outstanding figures of the history of the city was Saint Martin, second
bishop who shared his coat with a naked beggar in Amiens. This incident and the importance of
Martin in the medieval Christian West made Tours, and its position on the route
of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, a major centre during the
Middle Ages.
In the 6th century Gregory
of Tours, author of the Ten Books of History, made his mark on the town
by restoring the cathedral destroyed by a fire in 561. Saint Martin's monastery
benefited from its inception, at the very start of the 6th century from
patronage and support from the Frankish king, Clovis, which
increased considerably the influence of the saint, the abbey and the city in
Gaul. In the 9th century, Tours was at the heart of the Carolingian
Rebirth, in particular because of Alcuin abbot of Marmoutier.
In 732 AD, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi and a large army of Muslim
horsemen from Al-Andalus advanced 500 km deep
into France, and were stopped at Tours by Charles Martel and his infantry igniting
the Battle of Tours. The
outcome was defeat for the Muslims, preventing France from Islamic conquest. In
845, Tours repulsed the first attack of the Viking chief Hasting (Haesten). In 850,
the Vikings settled at the mouths of the Seine and the Loire. Still led by
Hasting, they went up the Loire again in 852 and sacked Angers, Tours and the abbey of Marmoutier.
During the Middle Ages,
Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres. The "City"
in the east, successor of the late Roman 'castrum', was composed of the
archiepiscopal establishment (the cathedral and palace of the archbishops) and
of the castle of Tours, seat of the authority of the Counts of Tours (later
Counts of Anjou) and of the King of France. In the west, the "new
city" structured around the Abbey of Saint Martin was freed from the
control of the City during the 10th century (an enclosure was built towards
918) and became "Châteauneuf". This space, organized between Saint
Martin and the Loire, became the economic centre of Tours. Between these two
centres remained Varenne,
vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the Abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of
the Loire. The two centres were linked during the 14th century. Tours is a good
example of a medieval double city.
Tours became the capital of
the county of Tours or Touraine, territory
bitterly disputed between the counts of Blois and Anjou – the latter were
victorious in the 9th century. It was the capital of France at the time of
Louis XI, who had settled in the castle of Montils (today the castle of Plessis
in La Riche, western suburbs of Tours), Tours and Touraine remained until the
16th century a permanent residence of the kings and court. The rebirth gave
Tours and Touraine many private mansions and castles, joined together to some
extent under the generic name of the Chateaux of the Loire. It is also at the
time of Louis XI that the silk industry was introduced – despite difficulties,
the industry still survives to this day.
Charles IX passed through
the city at the time of his royal tour of France between 1564 and 1566,
accompanied by the Court and various noblemen: his brother the Duke of Anjou, Henri de Navarre,
the cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine.
At this time, the Catholics returned to power in Angers: the intendant assumed
the right to nominate the aldermen. The Massacre of Saint-Barthelemy was not repeated at Tours.
The Protestants were imprisoned by the aldermen – a measure which prevented
their extermination. The permanent return of the Court to Paris and then
Versailles marked the beginning of a slow but permanent decline. Guillaume the
Metayer (1763–1798), known as Rochambeau, the well
known counter-revolutionary chief of Mayenne, was shot there on Thermidor 8,
year VI.
However, it was the arrival
of the railway in the 19th century which saved the city by making it an
important nodal point. The main railway station is known as
Tours-Saint-Pierre-des-Corps. At that time, Tours was expanding towards the
south into a district known as the Prébendes. The importance of the city as a centre
of communications contributed to its revival and, as the 20th century
progressed, Tours became a dynamic conurbation, economically oriented towards
the service sector.
Tours Cathedral:
15th-centuryFlamboyant Gothic west front with
Renaissance pinnacles, completed 1547.
The city was greatly
affected by the First World War. A force of 25,000 American soldiers arrived in
1917, setting up textile factories for the manufacture of uniforms, repair
shops for military equipment, munitions dumps, an army post office and an
American military hospital at Augustins. Thus Tours became a garrison town with
a resident general staff. The American presence is remembered today by the Woodrow Wilson bridge over the Loire,
which was officially opened in July 1918 and bears the name of the man who was
President of the USA from 1912 to 1920. Three American air force squadrons,
including the 492nd, were based at the Parçay-Meslay airfield, their personnel
playing an active part in the life of the city. Americans paraded at funerals
and award ceremonies for the Croix de Guerre; they also took part in festivals
and their YMCA organised shows for the
troops. Some men married girls from Tours.
In 1920, the city was host
to the Congress of Tours, which saw the creation of the French Communist Party.
Tours was also marked by
the Second World War. In 1940, the city suffered massive destruction and for
four years it was a city of military camps and fortifications. From 10–13 June
1940, Tours was the temporary seat of the French government before its move to Bordeaux. German
incendiary bombs caused a huge fire which blazed out of control from 20–22 June
and destroyed part of the city centre. Some architectural masterpieces of the
16th and 17th centuries were lost, as was the monumental entry to the city. The
Wilson Bridge (known locally as the 'stone bridge'), carried a water main which
supplied the city; the bridge was dynamited to slow the progress of the German
advance. With the water main severed and unable to extinguish the inferno, the
inhabitants had no option but to flee to safety. More heavy air raids
devastated the area around the railway station in 1944 causing several hundred
deaths
A plan for the rebuilding
of the downtown area drawn up by the local architect Camille Lefèvre was
adopted even before the end of the war. The plan was for 20 small quadrangular
blocks of housing to be arranged around the main road (la rue Nationale),
which was widened. This regular layout attempted to echo, yet simplify, the
18th-century architecture. Pierre Patout succeeded Lefèvre as the architect in
charge of rebuilding in 1945. At one time there was talk of demolishing the
southern side of the rue Nationale in order to make it in
keeping with the new development.
The recent history of Tours
is marked by the personality of Jean Royer, who was
Mayor for 36 years and helped to save the old town from demolition by
establishing one of the first Conservation
Areas. This example of conservation policy would later inspire the
Malraux Law for the safeguarding of historic city centres. In the 1970s, Jean
Royer also extended the city to the south by diverting the course of the River Cher to create the districts of
Rives du Cher and des Fontaines; at the time, this was one of the largest urban
developments in Europe. In 1970, the François-Rabelais university was founded;
this is centred on the bank of the Loire in the downtown area, and not – as it
was then the current practice – in a campus in the suburbs. The latter solution
was also chosen by the twin university of Orleans. Royer's long term as Mayor
was, however, not without controversy, as exemplified by the construction of
the practical – but aesthetically unattractive – motorway which runs along the
bed of a former canal just 1500 metres from the cathedral. Another bone of
contention was the original Vinci Congress Centre by Jean Nouvel. This
project incurred debts although it did, at least, make Tours one of France's
principal conference centres.
Jean Germain, a member of the Socialist Party, became
Mayor in 1995 and made debt reduction his priority. Ten years later, his
economic management is regarded as much wiser than that of his predecessor, the
financial standing of the city having returned to a stability. However, the
achievements of Jean Germain are criticised by the municipal opposition for a
lack of ambition: no large building projects comparable with those of Jean
Royer have been instituted under his double mandate. This position is disputed
by those in power, who affirm their policy of concentrating on the quality of
life, as evidenced by urban restoration, the development of public transport
and cultural activities.
|
Historical population
|
||
|
Year
|
Pop.
|
±%
|
|
1793
|
21,000
|
—
|
|
1800
|
20,240
|
−3.6%
|
|
1806
|
21,703
|
+7.2%
|
|
1821
|
21,928
|
+1.0%
|
|
1831
|
23,235
|
+6.0%
|
|
1836
|
26,669
|
+14.8%
|
|
1841
|
30,072
|
+12.8%
|
|
1846
|
30,766
|
+2.3%
|
|
1851
|
33,530
|
+9.0%
|
|
1856
|
38,055
|
+13.5%
|
|
1861
|
41,061
|
+7.9%
|
|
1866
|
42,450
|
+3.4%
|
|
1872
|
43,368
|
+2.2%
|
|
1876
|
48,325
|
+11.4%
|
|
1881
|
52,209
|
+8.0%
|
|
1886
|
59,585
|
+14.1%
|
|
1891
|
60,335
|
+1.3%
|
|
1896
|
63,267
|
+4.9%
|
|
1901
|
64,695
|
+2.3%
|
|
1906
|
67,601
|
+4.5%
|
|
1911
|
73,398
|
+8.6%
|
|
1921
|
75,096
|
+2.3%
|
|
1926
|
77,192
|
+2.8%
|
|
1931
|
78,585
|
+1.8%
|
|
1936
|
83,753
|
+6.6%
|
|
1946
|
80,044
|
−4.4%
|
|
1954
|
83,618
|
+4.5%
|
|
1962
|
92,944
|
+11.2%
|
|
1968
|
128,120
|
+37.8%
|
|
1975
|
140,686
|
+9.8%
|
|
1982
|
132,209
|
−6.0%
|
|
1990
|
129,509
|
−2.0%
|
|
1999
|
132,677
|
+2.4%
|
|
2006
|
136,942
|
+3.2%
|
|
2009
|
135,218
|
−1.3%
|
Place Jean Jaurès.
St Gatien Cathedral, from
Rue Lavoisier, just north of the Rue Colbert intersection.
Pont Wilson.
![[icon]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} |
The cathedral of Tours, dedicated to Saint Gatien, its canonized first bishop, was begun
about 1170 to replace the cathedral that was burnt out in 1166, during the
dispute between Louis
VII of France and Henry
II of England. The lowermost stages of the western towers (illustration,
above left) belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in
the profusely detailedFlamboyant
Gothic of the 15th century, completed just as the Renaissance was affecting the patrons
who planned the châteaux of Touraine. These towers
were being constructed at the same time as, for example, the Château de Chenonceau.
When the 15th-century
illuminator Jean Fouquet was set the task of
illuminatingJosephus's Jewish Antiquities, his depiction of Solomon's Temple was modeled after the
nearly-complete cathedral of Tours. The atmosphere of the Gothic cathedral
close permeates Honoré
de Balzac's dark short novel of jealousy and provincial intrigues, Le Curé de Tours (The Curate of Tours)
and his medieval story Maitre Cornélius opens within the cathedral
itself.
The inhabitants of Tours (Les
Tourangeaux) are renowned for speaking the "purest" form of
French in the entire country.[1] The pronunciation of
Touraine is traditionally regarded as the most standard pronunciation of the
French language, supposedly devoid of any perceived accent (unlike that of most other
regions of France, including Paris). Gregory of Tours wrote in the 6th century
that some people in this area could still speak Gaulish.
The city of Tours has a
population of 140,000 and is called "Le Jardin de la France"
("The Garden of France"). There are several parks located within the
city. Tours is located between two rivers, the Loire to the north and the Cher
to the south. The buildings of Tours are white with blue slate (called Ardoise) roofs; this style is
common in the north of France, while most buildings in the south of France have terracotta roofs.
Tours is famous for its
original medieval district, called le Vieux Tours. Unique to the Old City
are its preserved half-timbered buildings and la Place Plumereau, a square with busy pubs
and restaurants, whose open-air tables fill the centre of the square. The
Boulevard Beranger crosses the Rue Nationale at the Place Jean-Jaures
and is the location of weekly markets and fairs.
Tours is famous for its
many bridges crossing the river Loire. One of them, the Pont Wilson, collapsed in 1978, but was rebuilt just
like it was before.
Near the cathedral, in the
garden of the ancient Palais des Archevêques (now Musée des Beaux-Arts), is a huge cedar tree planted by Napoleon. The garden
also has in an alcove a stuffed elephant, Fritz. He escaped from the Barnum and Bailey circus during their stay in
Tours in 1902. He went mad and had to be shot down, but the city paid to honor
him, and he was stuffed as a result.
Tours is home to François Rabelais University, the site of one of the
most important choral competitions, called Florilège Vocal de Tours International Choir
Competition, and is a member city of the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing.
Today, with its extensive
rail (including TGV)
and autoroute links to the rest of the
country, Tours is a jumping-off point for tourist visits to the Loire Valley and the royal chateaux.
Tours is on one of the main
lines of the TGV. It is possible to travel to the west coast at Bordeaux in two and a half hours, to
the Mediterranean coast via Avignon and from there to Spain and Barcelona, or to Lyon, Strasbourg and Lille. It takes less than one hour by train
from Tours to Paris by TGV and one hour and a half to Charles de Gaulle
airport. Tours has two main stations: the central station Gare de Tours, and Gare de Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, just outside the
centre, the station used by trains that do not terminate in Tours.
Tours Loire Valley Airport connects the Loire Valley
to London Stansted Airport, Marseille and Porto.
Scheduled flights toDublin and Manchester as well as
charter flights to Ajaccio and Figari are also available during the summer.
Tours does not have a metro rail system; instead there
is a bus service, the main central stop being Jean Jaures, which is next to the Hôtel de Ville, and rue Nationale, the high street of Tours. A tram network is
under construction; completion is expected in September 2013, and 21Citadis trams have been ordered
from Alstom designed by RCP Design Global.[2]
Tours is a special place
for Catholics who follow the devotion to the Holy
Face of Jesus and the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
It was in Tours in 1843 that a Carmelite nun, Sister Marie of St Peter reported a vision which
started the devotion to the Holy
Face of Jesus, in reparation for the many insults Christ suffered in His Passion.
The Golden Arrow Prayer was first made public by
her in Tours.
The Venerable Leo Dupont also known as The Holy Man of Tours lived in Tours at about the
same time. In 1849 he started the nightly adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Tours, from where it
spread within France. Upon hearing of Sister Marie of St Peter’s
reported visions, he started to burn a vigil lamp continuously before a picture
of the Holy
Face of Jesus and helped spread the devotion within France.
The devotion was eventually approved by Pope Pius XII in 1958 and he formally
declared the Feast of the Holy
Face of Jesus as Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash
Wednesday) for all Roman Catholics.[3] The Oratory of the Holy Face on Rue St. Etienne in Tours
receives many pilgrims every year.
Tours was the site of the
episcopal activity of St.
Martin of Tours and has further Christian
connotations in that the pivotal Battle of Tours in 732 is often considered
the very first decisive victory over the invading Islamic forces, turning the
tide against them. The battle also helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian
Empire[4]
Tours was the birthplace
of:
10th century:
12th century:
15th century:
17th century:
18th century:
19th century:
20th century:
Tours is twinned with:
·
Jardin de la Préfecture(central park).
·
Giant Cedar tree.
·
·
Place Plumereau, Medieval buildings.
·
Place Plumereau.
·
Slate rooves of Tours.
·
Looking towards central Tours from the north
bank of the River Loire,
adjacent to the Pont Mirabeau.
2. ^ "Tours selects Citadis and APS". Railway
Gazette International (London). 14 September 2010. Retrieved 15
September 2010.
4. ^ Davis,
Paul K. (1999) "100 Decisive Battles From Ancient Times to the
Present" ISBN 0-19-514366-3
Published
in the 19th century
Published
in the 20th century
·
"Tours", The Encyclopaedia
Britannica (11th ed.), New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910, OCLC 14782424
 |
Travel
(disambiguation)
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
|
|
Travel may also refer to:
·
.travel,
sponsored top-level domain
·
Travel
Channel, identified on air with a logo that simply reads
"Travel" or TravelHD"
·
Travel (EP),
a 2009 by Future of Forestry
·
Travels (book),
a 1988 non-fiction book by Michael Crichton
·
Traveling (basketball), a specific rule violation in
the sport of basketball
·
Travelling (album), a 2012
album by Roxette
·
"Traveling"
(song), a 2001 song by Hikaru Utada
 |
This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title.
If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. |
No comments:
Post a Comment