A Virtual Tour of Tours

While I was talking on Skype yesterday with friends, I found it very useful to use GoogleMaps to help me explain a bit about where I live. Rather than post my own pictures, here are a few links to Google's revolutionary street-view technology which will allow you to virtually "walk" around some of the cool places I frequent in the city.


This is my house...57 Rue du Général Renault! It's a pretty residential neighborhood on the southern outskirts of Tours proper. Nobody has a yard here, but some places (like ours) have a drive-through area to a gravel lot out back where cars can park, since the streets are usually jam packed & you'd otherwise have to park blocks away to find a spot.


This is Saint-Gatien...the cathedral in Tours. Very old, very big & very impressively decorated - churches in particular are very interesting to me, as the engineering required to keep them standing for so many centuries really boggles my mind. For more detailed info, check out my previous post. 


This is my school...l'Institut de Touraine. Founded in 1912 as a school for international students, l'Institut welcomes around 2500 students each year and has had a total of over 150,000 students from more than 120 countries pass through its doors. While I'm only spending 2 weeks here, many come for months at a time.


This is Place Plumereau...one of the oldest squares in Tours. Dating from Medieval times, Place Plumereau is in the Vieux-Tours (Old Tours) section of town still has some of its original half-timber buildings (although they are leaning in every direction today) which have been restored and converted into many bars, cafés and family-run shops. This is by far the most touristy area of town and a hot spot for students to hang out come nightfall.

This is Place Jean Jaurès...the heart of downtown Tours. If you look to the right, you can see the impressive Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), and directly to its left is Le Palais de Justice ("Palace of Justice"...or just a fancy way to say court house. Don't think it'd seem so fancy if you're being dragged there in handcuffs though!) 


Running between the two is Rue National, along which one can find many clothing stores, shoe stores, banks and of course cafés. When looking at l'Hôtel de Ville, if you turn right you can head down Boulevard Heurteloup, and turning left gets you to Boulevard Béranger. Each street has large islands running down the center separating the left and right traffic lanes, and on various days each week different markets pop up here.  For example, today (Wednesday) was the flower market, where they also sell fresh fruits & veggies and random knock-off designer bags, belts, glasses, etc. And on Sundays both streets house massive flea markets where one can buy everything from recent comic books, to estate-sale type trinkets, from antique couches and furniture to taxidermied animals (I happened across a fox, a stuffed duckling, a dog...all very creepy) and pretty much anything else that someone used to use and now wants to sell. There was even a man walking a goat through here, because everyone knows how much goats enjoy going to tag sales....


So now you know a little bit more about where I spend my days wandering around - always finding new things to fascinate me!

Sunday In Tours

View from the Jardin des Prébendes d’Oé 

One of the things that slipped my mind about France was the fact that nearly everything closes on Sunday. Unlike our secular lifestyle in the US, where most people can't even think about starting their weekend shopping without first stopping at Dunkin' Donuts, France, with its deeply religious past, really takes Sunday as a day to rest & relax. Everything except cafés, churches & a handful of tabacs (French convenience stores) closes its doors Saturday night and doesn't re-open until Monday morning. It must be nice to be guaranteed a day off every weekend to spend with your family!

Downtown Tours, devoid of life on a Sunday

From the tourist's perspective, however, this is a bit of an inconvenience. If you're looking for something to do on a Sunday, good luck! Thankfully I hadn't had much time to explore the city itself during the week as I was wrapped up in other excursions, so a few of my new-found friends & I spent the day wandering the city looking for cool sights - and boy, did we find them!

L’Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Tours

The center of Tours has many impressive architectural sites, such as the town hall & le Pont Wilson, which are lovely to behold & make me jealous that Westfield has a plain old brick building as our town hall and a pair of nasty, sea-foam green bridges instead of the nice, aesthetically-pleasing structures I can find here...

Le Pont Wilson spanning the Loire River

Tours has been a popular destination for tourists since the Middle Ages, when the faithful would make pilgrimages here to see the relics of Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours and patron saint of France, which are housed in the Tours Cathedral, Saint-Gatien. His tomb lies in the crypt right below the sanctuary, and visitors can go downstairs to pay their respects below the high altar. The cathedral was begun in 1170 and not finished until 1547, and its ornate stone decorations were furnished by donations the pilgrims would make in order to behold the precious relics inside which they had traveled so far to see.

Cathédrale Saint-Gatien (Tours Cathedral), where the tomb of St. Martin is located

Original 13th-century frescoes still decorate parts of the interior!

There are numerous other churches to visit in Tours, and we wandered by the ruins of a once large church which was unfortunately almost entirely destroyed during the French Revolution. While in disarray, the cut-away view of the church affords visitors the chance to marvel at Medieval engineering technology - it is truly amazing that what many would consider early or "rudimentary" craftsmanship is still standing, even after being weakened severely by trauma from wars sustained nearly 300 years ago.

Remains of an early church destroyed during the French Revolution in the 18th-century

Follow this link for more pictures from my adventures through Tours! And to better view pictures I've posted here, click on them for close-ups.

Also, a few updates about my schedule the next two weeks. I have crash-courses in advanced written and spoken French from 9:45-12:45 Monday through Friday, with various cultural activities with our larger group scattered through random afternoons. They include a cooking class, wine & cheese tasting (I'll be the first in line at this one!!), a visit to the château Chenonceau, guided tour through the local Museum of Fine Arts, and another day trip & picnic at the châteaux Chambord and Blois...not that I'll be busy or anything! We'll find out where we're living in Paris sometime around next Wednesday & then ship back up to Paris for good on Friday, September 9th. I learned today that the classes I'll be taking at l’Université de Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle don't actually start until October 3th (the latest of all the Paris universities), so it looks like I'll have plenty of time to settle into life in Paris before the madness really begins!

Day Trip to Amboise

Downtown Amboise

My program organized an excursion to the town of Amboise today to visit a few famous locales. The town itself is located a mere 20 minutes from Tours by train on the national SNCF train network, which makes traveling throughout France easy and cheap. I started my morning off with a nice 35 minute walk to the train station. Tours is nice because everything is easily accessible by foot, but the train station is not somewhere on a direct route from my house.

Le Clos Luce as viewed from its lawn

Our first stop was Le Clos Lucé, the final house that Leonardo da Vinci lived in before he died. It was built in the mid-15th century and later was occupied by French kings Charles VIII and his wife, Anne de Bretagne, followed by Francois Ier (the king responsible for igniting the Renaissance in France) and his wife Marguerite de Navarre. In 1516, Francois Ier had invited Leonardo da Vinci to move from his native Italy to France to help advise the king about how to stimulate the French Renaissance, as da Vinci had been highly influential in bringing about the Renaissance in Italy a few years before. Le Clos Lucé was da Vinci's home during this time, and it is believed that he did the majority of his work on the Mona Lisa in one of the studios here.

Leonardo da Vinci's Bedroom

In the Renaissance garden courtyard at Le Clos Luce

One of the many salons, complete with original 15th-century tapestries in amazing condition

After touring the house, we ate our picnic lunches provided by our host families on the lawn outside. Mine consisted of some sort of unknown (but delicious) paté sandwich on a baguette, a large piece of cheese, another baguette with ham and butter in it, some chips and juice. In France, lunch is usually the largest meal of the day, with breakfast consisting only of bread, jam and tea, and a later dinner - more like a light snack - around 8pm.

A view of the town center

Following lunch, we had some free time to roam around the city of Amboise. It's really picturesque and especially nice because there are a lot of pedestrian-only areas where you don't have to worry about being run down by a crazy driver...a welcomed relief to camera-happy tourists who are paying more attention to the scenery than the local drivers.

Pedestrian area - no cars allowed!

Next up on our agenda was Amboise's headline attraction, the Château d’Amboise. Perched atop a cliff overlooking the Loire River, the 15th-century château was the home of King Charles VIII and later Francois Ier, among other royals. It is also notable as it is the first of the Loire valley châteaux to incorporate Italian aesthetics, a product of the early Renaissance, which spread to France after Francois Ier traveled in Italy and brought some of its revolutionary new ideas back to France with him.

Château d’Amboise, from the garden courtyard

Note the pointy Italian spires, a revolutionary new concept in France

Enough of my historical ramblings! Some highlights of the Château & its grounds were:

da Vinci's tomb in the St Hubert Chapel on the Château's grounds! 

this awesome view of the Loire River from Amboise!

The "Rachael-In-Europe" Pose!

Gargoyles! (a.k.a. fancy downspouts)

Really Old Suits of Armor!

Fancy Rooms! (think Newport Mansions on steroids)

Blossoming Gardens!

We wrapped up our time in Amboise with a beverage at the Tea House Bigot, where I had one of the best hot chocolates ever & thoroughly appreciated sitting down for an hour after a long day walking cobblestone streets and tripping over pretty much everything that crossed my path!

Enjoying my 'Chocolat A L'Ancienne' - steamed milk mixed with melted dark chocolate

--> And for those of you who don't have Facebook, here's a link to the rest of my photos so far!

My Home in Tours

Here's a quick virtual tour of where I live....

My street's so small and narrow it's near impossible to get a halfway decent picture of the outside of my house, so I give full credit to GoogleEarth for this lovely shot.

The view out my bedroom window

My room (please note the toddler-sized bed I have!)

Other side of my room

Living room/Dining Room/Office

Kitchen, complete with the world's smallest appliances

Au Revoir America, Bonjour France!

For all of you wondering, I made it to France! These have been a crazy past few couple of days for me, so I'll briefly bring you up to speed...

My family at the Inner Harbor

I said goodbye to Westfield early on Tuesday morning (8/23) when my family and I flew into Baltimore to spend the day and break up my long trip. We toured the Inner Harbor on a high-speed boat, during which a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck just outside nearby Norfolk, VA and consequently sent Baltimore into a panic, although from the boat we had no idea that it had happened. Thankfully we stayed safe and enjoyed our day despite all the chaos.

Chaos following the earthquake, all buildings were evacuated

A damaged building after the quake

Stones fell from the spire and littered the street, causing police to block off the square

The rest of our afternoon was spent exploring all of the little shops and sights that Baltimore has to offer, ending with a delicious meal at Bertha's Mussles - of course I had the crab cakes, it would be a sin to be in Maryland and to not have them! 

Then on Wednesday (8/24) we moved on to spend my last day in the States in Washington, D.C., as my flight was leaving from Dulles later that evening and we wanted to cram in some sightseeing before my departure. So, in continuing with the touristy vibe, we took an iconic Duck Tour of the city so we could see lots in a short amount of time without having to trek all over creation on foot.  

A view of the Capitol Building from the Duck Tour

After a quick meeting at the airport hotel, my study abroad group said goodbye to our families & headed to the airport to await our red eye flight to Paris. We arrived in France on time & with all of our luggage - what are the chances that 65 people with multiple bags all end up finding every last one at the airport? A bus was waiting for us and promptly whisked us away to the city of Tours, about 2 hours southwest of Paris, where we will spend the next two weeks taking refresher grammar, conversation, culture and other classes to accustom us all to living in France before we head off for life in Paris. Here, we stay with temporary host families - I'm living with a 35-ish year old woman named Aurélie in her very small apartment on the edge of the city. Check out my neighborhood & city here!

I'm quickly settling into a routine & finding life not all that different from home as of yet. A few things I've noticed that are different & take some adapting to: drinking my morning tea out of a giant bowl instead of a mug, using a handheld shower (as everyone knows I am lacking in the coordination department!) & eating considerably smaller meals at odd hours of the day, just to name a few for now. As far as culture shock goes, however, I am fortunate to have traveled before and have been exposed to such differences in small doses, so I'm not feeling too overwhelmed as of yet - this may change as I transition into life in a huge city like Paris!

I had some nice visitors last night, as my Uncle Dave was visiting his fiancée Ana in Paris and they both drove down to Tours to take me to dinner last night! We went to a delicious restaurant, Les Pierres Fondus, where we had - you guessed it - fondue! We had a leisurely evening chatting over some yummy Bordeaux rosé and I ended my meal with the best profiterole ever.

Posing for pics with the camera balanced on the car's roof!

On our way to dinner

Enjoying our yummy fondue!

I'm just getting ready to set off on an excursion with my group today - we're headed to the Château d'Amboise this morning, as the city of Tours is situated in the heart of the Loire river valley where all sorts of these Renaissance castles are located. More to come soon!

And in case you were wondering, the title of my blog, "La Vie Est Ailleurs," means "Life is elsewhere" and comes from a contemporary French song I love by a French-Canadian artist who goes by Coeur de Pirate (Heart of a Pirate). Check it out here!

Feel free to comment below with questions or post whatever you like!