Around rue Nationale
France > Loire > Cities > Tours > Around rue Nationale
At the head of rue Nationale, Tours' main street, statues of Descartes and Rabelais overlook the scruffy walkways that run along the bank of the Loire. At its tail, the huge, traffic-ridden Place Jean Jaurès is the site of the grandiose Hôtel de Ville and Palais de Justice.A short walk back from the river and you come to the Benedictine church of St Julien, whose old monastic buildings are home to two museums. The dry-as-dust Musée des Vins, 16 rue Nationale (daily except Tues 9am–noon & 2–6pm; €2.50), is only worth visiting for its location in the barn-like twelfth-century cellars of the abbey, though if your French is up to it, there's a comprehensive display on the history, mythology and production of wine. Behind the museum, a Gallo-Roman winepress from Cheillé sits in the former cloisters of the church. The Musée de Compagnonnage, at 8 rue Nationale (mid-June to mid-Sept daily 9am–noon & 2–6pm; mid-Sept to mid-June closed Tues; €4) is housed in the eleventh-century guesthouse and sixteenth-century monks' dormitory. It honours the peculiarly French cult of the artisan, displaying the "masterpieces" that craftsmen had to create in order to join their guild (compagnonnage) as a master craftsman. The skills are unquestionable, but many of these showpieces are breathtakingly vulgar, displaying arts as diverse as cake-making, carpentry, clog-making and cooperage. A few steps west of rue Nationale, the Hôtel Gouin, 25 rue du Commerce, has a Renaissance facade to stop you in your tracks, but the museum inside (daily: April–Sept 9.30am–12.30pm & 1.15–6.30pm; Oct–March 9.30am–12.30pm & 2–5.30pm; €3.50) is a dull collection of archeological oddities and the remnants of a private scientific laboratory from Chenonceau – more rich man's toys than cutting-edge research tools.
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