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Tours

There has been a city at Tours since before Roman times, being called Caesarodunum and later Civitas Turonorum (transmuted to Tours over the centuries). In the middle ages the city was the site of an important victory by Charles Martell over the Moors in 745AD. The Vikings penetrated to Tours later and the city was a double city, the City being in the old part about the Cathedral, and the newer part around the Abbey of St Martin became known as Chateauneuf.

We found the city lacking in effort in the old quarter with very little decoration with flowers, for instance.

Medieval buildings in old quarter, some with very fancy carving. Tours Cathedral.

On the north bank of the River Loire we found a Roman Aqueduct on the map and managed to locate it on the ground, between the small towns of Luynes and Fondettes.

                    It looks as though the scaffold holes are still in the columns.

The remains of the aqueduct include the top arch and water channel on some of the columns. Other columns have been reduced in height and some lost altogether. The aqueduct spans a wide shallow valley. The purpose of the aqueduct is uncertain as it is not near a known centre of population, the nearby city of Tours, where there was known military fort and later Civitas, is on the opposite river bank. The aqueduct is in a high area with no higher hills around. I have found no references to it yet on the Web.